


Conversations by Glow Toad Light

by beautifulterriblequeen



Category: The Dragon Prince (Cartoon)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Canon Divergence - Ezran Stayed Behind, Clever Little King, Enemies to Friends, Exasperated Moondad, Fight Scene, Gen, Mention of torture, Moonshadow Tactics, Politics and Negotiations, Runaan Finds His Inner Marshmallow, Sad, Smoky Assassins, Viren is very inconsiderate, why are you like this
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-08
Updated: 2020-05-07
Packaged: 2020-11-02 01:03:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 19
Words: 38,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20568944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beautifulterriblequeen/pseuds/beautifulterriblequeen
Summary: What if Ezran stayed behind at Katolis Castle to make sure his dad was okay and hid in the walls once he learned that Harrow had been killed? What if he found Runaan?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this in the middle of a thunderstorm which knocked out my internet, so. There it is in the story.

Thunder boomed so loudly that Runaan could hear it even in the deep bowels of Katolis Castle. Its irregular shuddering vibrated against the calm of his meditative state. Water trickled down the far wall of his cell. If the storm kept up much longer, the assassin would find himself kneeling in a cold puddle of rainwater. But his discomfort didn’t matter. The storm didn’t matter. Nothing mattered.

_I am already dead._

The heavy wooden door creaked.

Runaan’s heart rate rose, but he didn’t move except to look up from where his head hung as he knelt in his chains. The girl again, no doubt. Bringing _bread_.

But the head that peeked around the door wasn’t adorned with long, dark, purple-tipped hair. Against the blue crystal light from the hallway, its silhouette hovered a lot closer to the floor, too.

Runaan’s white brows lowered in momentary confusion. _A child?_ But then he recognized that puff of dark hair. Those wide blue eyes.

Prince Ezran. His second target.

He tensed, and his chains protested with a quiet clank.

Two sets of blue eyes locked hard in the dimness. The moment drew out. Runaan braced for judgment, tears, accusations, a dagger in his heart.

Instead, the young prince slipped inside and shut the door. In one arm, he held the glow toad he’d carried on the battlements. But Runaan saw no sign of the egg of the Dragon Prince.

“I gave the egg to Callum and Rayla,” Ezran said quietly. “They’ll take it to Xadia and return it to its mother. Was that what you wanted it for?” He approached until his boot came down in the shallow puddle of rainwater, and then he paused and backed up.

Runaan didn’t answer. The unpredictable combination of his guest’s humanity and youth was making it hard to guess where Prince Ezran was trying to take the conversation. _Is he even old enough to understand interrogation techniques?_

“Bait, can we have a little light?” Ezran asked.

The glow toad grumbled quietly, but he wagged his thick tail and let off a soft golden glow.

Runaan squinted against the gentle light. He’d been kneeling in the dark for two days, and Moonshadow eyes weren’t overly fond of Sun-powered light sources even on a good day.

Today was not a good day.

Runaan had the sinking suspicion it was about to get worse.

Ezran studied the breadth of the puddle spreading across the floor and made a series of leaps across the uneven paving stones until he stood on a dry patch of floor a few feet in front of Runaan. His eyes were impossibly young. Such a soft, privileged prince. Yet those young eyes were draped with heavy shrouds of sadness. The look they gave the assassin was, strangely, one of betrayal.

Runaan had never been on the prince’s side, so there had been no trust to betray. And he couldn’t remember ever being that young. He’d definitely never been that naïve.

Hugging Bait to his chest, Ezran said, “You killed my dad, didn’t you?”

Runaan’s eyes narrowed, and his lips firmed. He pulled himself up from where he’d been hanging forward from his manacles, balancing in a neutral kneeling position, chin high. The little prince was still several inches taller than he was, but he stared up into Ezran’s blue eyes with complete confidence.

Ezran took his silence as assent. “I stayed behind to see if he was okay. I know how to hide pretty well. But…” The prince’s eyes dropped to the floor. “He wasn’t okay. You’d already killed him.” His childish voice broke, and he buried his face against his glowing companion.

Runaan’s gaze swept the prince and read his sorrow, his confusion, his utter loss. For a bare moment, they struck him hard. Rayla had been similarly lost in grief when her parents joined the Dragon Guard and left her in his care. He’d held her many a night as she wept lonely tears onto his shoulder—

With a silent snarl, Runaan locked his softness back down. He tightened his hands into fists and focused on breathing at a slow, steady pace. His eyes rested on Ezran’s shaking shoulders. He had no idea why the little prince had come to him, but come he had.

Ezran raised his eyes and swiped at them with his sleeve. His face hardened just a little—perhaps that was all the harder he’d learned to be, thus far in his soft life. “I want to know why you did this.”

Runaan raised an eyebrow.

Ezran took a step closer. “Tell me!” But he flinched at the loudness of his own voice and hunched his shoulders, looking hunted.

Runaan lowered his head, but he kept his eyes on the prince. Ezran really was hiding, then. “What will you do if I tell you what you wish to know?” he asked softly.

Ezran blinked. “I… don’t know. I guess maybe it depends on your answer.”

A cynical smile flickered across Runaan’s lips and vanished. “Not particularly motivating.”

Ezran drew in a deep, slow breath. He seemed to be processing. “I won’t kill you, if that’s what you’re afraid of.”

A mocking snort ripped from Runaan’s nose. “Afraid? Of you?” The assassin dipped his head to the side and raked Ezran from head to toe with a scathing, dismissive look.

“Well, I just said I wouldn’t, so… so there. Just… tell me. Why did you kill my dad?”

“Because he deserved it.” Runaan’s tone was icy.

“He was my dad! He loved me!” Ezran squeezed Bait again, and the glow toad flared gray for a moment.

Repulsion pulled at the corner of Runaan’s lip. “He murdered the King of the Dragons. A life for a life. Justice was served with his death.”

“I don’t think it was,” Ezran protested. “He was a good king. He helped everyone.”

Runaan’s narrow gaze settled on the prince’s soft, sad eyes. “Good people can still do unspeakable things.”

Ezran’s eyes flared wide. They narrowed in a close approximation of Runaan’s own expression. “Like _you_, you mean?”

Runaan blinked, but Ezran was already whirling to leave. He stomped through the rainwater puddle, tugged open the heavy door, and left without looking back.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “What are the ribbons for? Rayla had two, before. And so did you. But now you only have one, and it looks like it hurts.”  
“You would not understand.”

Ezran returned the next day. In his absence, the rain had stopped leaking in, but it had only partially evaporated, leaving the cell dank and heavy with the smell of wet stone and the leavings of creatures that lived in the dark. He eased into the spot he’d stood on the day before, and Bait lit up without being asked.

In the light of the Sun creature, the kingkiller and the orphan prince studied each other.

“Bet you didn’t think I’d be back, huh?” Ezran offered in a subdued voice.

Runaan replied with a tiny tip of his intact horn.

“I don’t have…” the prince began, but he changed his tone and said instead, “I run, sometimes, when I’m… But I can’t run from this. I could never run far enough to be okay with what you did.”

Runaan waited in hard silence.

Bait looked at him, then looked up at Ezran. He croaked softly.

Ezran took a deep breath. “I thought about what you did on the battlements that night, and I have something else to ask.”

Runaan raised a tired eyebrow.

“You’re an assassin. Rayla said you were the team leader. And you’re like, pretty old.”

Runaan’s other eyebrow joined the first in a high arc.

But Ezran’s gaze had already dropped to the scars across Runaan’s chest. “You’ve been fighting for a long time, haven’t you? You must be really good. So…”

Runaan’s brows drew together as he studied the young prince, uncertain where the conversation was headed.

“You could’ve killed me then, right? But… You didn’t. You fought with Rayla instead. You said you’d kill _her_. But then you didn’t do that, either. She wasn’t even hurt the next time I saw her. You let us both live. Why?”

Runaan’s mouth quirked, but he didn’t answer. His eyes locked hard onto Ezran’s.

Ezran’s eyebrows rose in soft, pleading arcs. “Please, I need to understand. My brother’s running to an enemy country with one of your assassins. Is he going to be okay, or am I going to lose him too?”

Runaan sighed, rolled his tongue against his teeth, and said, “Rayla made her choice. She’ll protect your brother until her dying breath.”

But Ezran kept pushing. “She made her choice, and you kind of let her. Is that how it works?”

A spark of ire flared in Runaan’s eyes. “I do not take life lightly, young prince. A Moonshadow assassin never kills wantonly.”

“What about me, though? Rayla said I was her second target. She changed her mind when she saw the egg.” He hesitated before speaking again. “Did you change your mind when you saw it, too? Is that why you didn’t kill me on the battlements? Rayla tried to get you to call everything off. I heard you say it didn’t work that way. But… it kinda seems to. Not for my dad. But for me. Because of the egg.”

Runaan sighed and glanced toward the binding ribbon on his left bicep. “Perhaps.”

Ezran followed his glance. “What are the ribbons for? Rayla had two, before. And so did you. But now you only have one, and it looks like it hurts.”

“You would not understand.”

“Don’t treat me like a child!” Ezran insisted. “You killed my dad. The least you can do is help me understand _why_, and why you didn’t kill me too. You came to Katolis to make a point. Well… I’m listening. Make your point.” The prince lifted his little chin and narrowed his eyes.

Runaan raised his head in surprise. “But you _are_ a child.”

“I am the new king of Katolis.”

At that, Runaan’s eyes widened a bit. The boy wished to speak from a position of authority, but he clearly had no experience with it. Still, the young lad who had sought audience with Runaan was in fact a king of Runaan’s own making. “Rayla was never a target. And justice would not have been served by your death.”

Ezran thought that over for a moment. Bait grumbled as if in agreement. “Well, thanks, then, I guess. And your ribbon thing?”

“It’s for you.” Runaan’s smile was cold.

“What do you mean?”

“Two targets, two bindings. They loosen when…” Runaan tipped his horn toward his unbound arm.

Ezran’s eyes widened. “Wait, that means Rayla has one left, too? Oh no! What’s going to happen to her?”

Runaan pressed his lips together at the boy’s utter softness. “The same thing that will happen to me, I expect, only a little further down.”

Ezran made a squeak of alarm and hid his face against Bait’s head. “That’s terrible. That’s so mean! Why would you do that to her? She—she trusted you.”

Ezran’s use of the past tense found its way past Runaan’s defenses. _She used to trust me, but no longer. _He looked aside, clenching his jaw. “I told you that you would not understand. You should go.”

“But isn’t there anyth—” Ezran began.

Runaan’s eyes flared like blue suns. “There is only one way to release.” His voice was rough with thirst, and its harsh edges scraped at Ezran’s well-meaning intentions.

The little king backed up a step. Then another. And then he fled, eyes wide.

Alone once more, Runaan let his head hang down. Surely after that fiasco, the boy would never return. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After a long moment of enduring the assassin’s hard blue stare, Ezran polished off his jelly tart and remarked, “Then I should thank you for letting me live, Runaan.”  
Runaan twitched at the sound of his name on a human’s tongue.  
“Didn’t think I remembered it, did you?” Ezran said softly. He reached into a pouch and pulled out another jelly tart.  
“Didn’t think you’d care to use it. _Ezran_.”

“I heard Claudia saying that you weren’t eating. You think they’re trying to poison you, don’t you?” Ezran asked in a knowing tone.

Runaan looked up from his sleepy daze and saw the young king holding a baked pastry while his glow toad nestled into his puff of hair. The cell had dried out, finally, and the still-warm tart smelled delicious despite the strange, glutinous scent of baked bread. His stomach clenched. “No.”

Ezran held out the pastry. “Do you want a jelly tart? They’re persimmon.”

Runaan rolled his eyes to the side. “No.”

The tart wavered in the light of the glow toad. “Do you think _I’m_ trying to poison you?”

Runaan let his staring silence answer for him.

Puzzled but not offended, Ezran took a big bite. “Have it your way. I can get you more if you change your mind, though. Now, where were we? You’re going to lose an arm because you let me live, and Rayla’s going to lose a hand. Unless, I guess, I stand a little too close to you. Does that sound about right?”

“I made my choice. I will not unmake it. As for Rayla, her hand can be saved if she’s swift enough.”

Ezran paused mid-chew. “Wait, what?”

“You’re in no position to understand the subtleties of Xadian politics, little king.”

“Try me. You might be surprised.”

“I doubt it.”

Ezran’s face firmed into a frown. “_Hey_. Rude. I’m just trying to talk.”

Runaan let out a slow, steady, audible breath and focused fully on Ezran. The intensity of his turquoise gaze beneath taut white brows made Ezran pause and gulp loudly. “Why?” the assassin asked. “Why do you come here? You have a throne to claim. What are you hiding from?”

Ezran took a deep breath, and his face blanched. His eyes widened in fear, and his mouth fell open in a silent gasp.

Runaan read Ezran like a book. “_Who_ are you hiding from?”

“Lord Viren.” Ezran whispered the name, afraid to speak it too loudly even in that isolated cell.

A series of hard flashbacks rocked Runaan’s memory. The fight in the hallway had spilled into the king’s chamber, and Lord Viren had let it. His magics had come later, to disastrous effect. Runaan blinked away the images of blood and death—only the latest of years’ worth of violence. Images of desecration by dark magic—a new and repulsive memory. The assassin’s eyes flicked past Ezran to the heavy door. “Does he know you’re here?”

“No. But I overheard him talking to Soren—that’s his son. He’s the head of the Crownguard.”

Runaan’s expression hardened. “We’ve met.”

“He said… he told Soren to kill us. Callum and me.”

“Rayla too, then.”

“Yeah. Probably so. I hope Callum can keep them from fighting. Lord Viren’s scary. But his kids have been our friends for years.”

A sneer soured Runaan’s features. “Loyalty can be fickle.”

Ezran frowned back at him. “Don’t start that again. If you’d just agreed with Rayla—”

“I _did_ agree with Rayla.” The assassin’s matted velvet voice shifted to warm, hard metal—thin, but not sharp. Not meant to wound. It silenced the young king immediately. “You’re standing there as proof. I told you. I made my choice.”

After a long moment of enduring the assassin’s hard blue stare, Ezran polished off his jelly tart and remarked, “Then I should thank you for letting me live, Runaan.”

Runaan twitched at the sound of his name on a human’s tongue.

“Didn’t think I remembered it, did you?” Ezran said softly. He reached into a pouch and pulled out another jelly tart.

“Didn’t think you’d care to use it. _Ezran_.”

“Why not?”

“We’re all just ‘elf’ to you humans.”

Bait grumbled on top of Ezran’s head, and the king looked up at him. “You’re right, Bait. I think it would help if he understood that.”

Runaan raised an eyebrow.

Ezran looked back at him, open, confident. Runaan caught the barest glimpse of what kind of king he would make. If he lived that long. “I can talk to animals,” Ezran said. “It’s something I’ve been able to do for years. I can talk to Bait. I could even feel things from the egg. It wanted to go home to its mother.”

At that, Runaan’s eyes widened.

“But you’re different,” Ezran continued blithely. “I can’t talk to you like I can to animals. Do you know why that is?”

Runaan’s expression shifted to discomfort. “You’ve been trying to reach into my mind?”

“Uhh, sorta? Not like, in a bad way. And it didn’t work. But see, that’s my point. You’re not an animal. And even Bait has a name, so I should use yours. Even… even after what you did. You’re not a monster.”

“I’m humbled by the honor of your ringing endorsement, Your Majesty.”

Ezran glared at him. “Are you always this charming?”

Runaan’s eyes narrowed, and his lips thinned with hard sass. “Yes.”

“Well maybe Rayla will have it easy with Callum, then. And here I was worried.”

“She probably will.”

“Ugh.” Ezran rolled his eyes and stepped closer. “Why are you like this?” He gestured with his jelly tart, including Runaan’s hard expression and his ribbon-bound arm.

Runaan’s lip curled. “The Dragon Queen sent me to avenge the deaths of her king and his heir after _your father murdered_ them. I did my duty for queen and country. And now I kneel in the dark as a prisoner of war, at the mercy of the man you yourself are hiding from. Do you know what dark mages do to magical creatures? How they burn us, piece by piece, for just a little more power in a world of helplessness?”

Ezran’s expression fractured. He looked Runaan up and down as if seeing him for the first time. Shirtless and bruised, his horn broken off, kneeling in chains. In a secret dungeon. No trial. No conviction. Ezran studied Runaan’s puffy, purpling fingers as if imagining them being removed and used exactly as Runaan had said. The boy looked like he was about to cry. Or vomit. Or both.

The young king scooped Bait off his head and held him tight, warding off the effect of Runaan’s words. “Don’t say that. Don’t say it like that.”

“And here I thought you wished to hear the truth.” Runaan’s voice had gone cold again.

“My dad didn’t kill the dragon’s egg.” Ezran’s voice was faint. “That’s the truth. Lord Viren hid it down here and lied to him.”

“And because of that, I let you live.” Runaan tipped his head and added sardonically, “May your kingdom ever reign.”

Ezran’s blue eyes studied Runaan with hurt and suspicion at the barbed compliment. “That wasn’t nice.”

“I didn’t spare you for _your_ sake. It was simply the right thing to do. Every breath you take, you owe to me. To my justice. To my mercy.” Another sassy tip of his horn accompanied a brief, wry smile. “I do hope I’ve invested in the future wisely.”

Bait grumbled and glared at Runaan. Ezran gave him a comforting hug. “I think he means it, too, Bait. But he’s mad. You know I say things meaner when I’m mad, too.”

Runaan’s gemstone gaze dropped to the glow toad, and the two glared at each other for a long moment.

“What he’s really saying is,” Ezran went on to explain to his companion, “if the egg lived, I should live, too. He decided that was fair. No matter what it cost him. And it’s costing him an arm.” Ezran looked up. “Is that about right?”

Runaan’s eyes lifted to meet the little king’s gaze and dropped back to meet Bait’s. he gave the glow toad an exasperated sigh and briefly pressed his lips together.

In response, Bait shifted to a warm orange color for a moment. Ezran let out a surprised gasp and looked from Bait to Runaan. “Are you two talking, too?”

“No,” Runaan grumped, at the same time that Bait let out a grumble of his own.

“Okay, sure. I believe you.” Ezran’s eyes rested on Runaan’s bound arm. “Did you plan to go with Rayla? You said if she traveled fast enough, she wouldn’t lose her hand. Did you think you’d live long enough to get help?”

“Help? No. Redemption.”

Ezran’s eyes widened with understanding. “The Dragon Queen. She could lift the binding?”

“If she chose.”

Ezran nodded thoughtfully. “If you brought her egg back in one piece… Yeah. I think she’d choose to set you and Rayla free.”

“She can still choose to free Rayla.” Runaan’s voice was wistful.

“Rayla deserves it.” Ezran’s voice was sharp. “But you should still pay for what you did to my dad.”

Runaan fixed the young king with a steady turquoise look. “I’m trying.”

Ezran’s gaze flickered over the assassin again. “Wait, is that why you’re not eating? You’re trying to…”

Runaan looked away. “Your jelly tarts repulse me.”

“I could bring you something else. Do you like apples?”

Runaan stared at a side wall and didn’t answer.

“You _are_ trying to starve yourself to death. Why, are you scared? Are you trying to get out of being punished?” Ezran’s nose wrinkled up in distaste.

Runaan lunged forward in his chains, causing Ezran to take a quick step back. “Do humans consider torture and vivisection fair treatment? Is my death not enough to slake your bloodthirst?” A black humor tainted Runaan’s mocking words, and he smiled toothily.

The poor little king stood in angry confusion, uncertain how to answer. Bait gave Runaan an accusatory growl.

Runaan backed off, slumping his shoulders against the cold stone behind him. “I showed your father every mercy. That is our way. His debt was paid with his life, not with his suffering. Never that.”

Ezran’s wide eyes flickered across Runaan once again. “I…”

Tired and aching, Runaan simply let the little king see him as he was.

To his surprise, Ezran stepped forward again, hesitantly reaching out a hand. Runaan frowned, but there was little point in trying to move, whether in defense or aggression, while chained as he was. Ezran’s warm brown hand settled on Runaan’s muscled shoulder. Their eyes met, closer than ever before.

“Y-you’re cold.”

Runaan’s gaze sharpened. Ezran was close enough that he could kill the boy three different ways, even chained as he was. The glow toad would follow soon after—it was too loyal not to attack. But killing Ezran right there in his cell would be giving Viren exactly what he wanted. And Runaan had already made his choice. In a tired voice, Runaan replied, “It’s cold in here.”

Somehow, that simple admission seemed to break Ezran’s spirit completely. He gasped softly and whirled for the door. “I-I need to go…”

The door creaked shut behind the king, leaving Runaan in the dark again. But he could feel the young king’s warm persimmon handprint on his shoulder for far longer than he expected.

Since entering Katolis, Runaan had never expected _any_ human to touch him without malicious intent. Especially not the child of his taken target.

_The little king has a glow toad with the Sun arcanum, an ability to converse with animals, and… empathy for the enemy._ Ezran was not what Runaan had expected. Not at all.

Perhaps the Moon was not quite done guiding Runaan through his destined cycle.

Perhaps his choice to meet Rayla halfway—compromise on one death instead of two, or none—carried more far-reaching consequences than even he could see.

Perhaps there was indeed something Runaan could do with his time besides dying, after all.

_Perhaps_.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Has something happened?” Runaan asked, gently probing for information.
> 
> But Ezran shook his head. “I just had a nightmare. Is it… can I just sit in here with you for a little while?”

“I have nowhere else to go.”

The little voice woke Runaan from a deep sleep. He’d been dreaming, he thought. Of Rayla.

Now the uncrowned, fugitive King of Katolis stood before him, hugging his glow toad tightly. His eyes were wide and damp. His hair even seemed to wilt with sadness.

“Has something happened?” Runaan asked, gently probing for information.

But Ezran shook his head. “I just had a nightmare. Is it… can I just sit in here with you for a little while?”

Runaan’s tired eyebrows shot up. Voluntarily choosing to spend time with your father’s killer seemed an extreme choice, as leisure activities went. Perhaps Ezran was doing more poorly than it seemed, alone in the dark and twisted bowels of his own home. _He must not have contacted anyone else yet. He doesn’t know who to trust. _“I wasn’t in your nightmare, then?”

“No. just… just my dad and me. And Callum.” Ezran looked down at Bait. “And you, Bait. You’re always in my dreams.”

Bait croaked encouragingly and shot Runaan a sharp look.

Runaan ignored the glow toad. “This is your castle, Ezran. Do as you wish.” The illusions of power and powerlessness had been on his mind of late, and it wouldn’t hurt to remind the young king that he wasn’t as powerless as he thought.

_Well. It might hurt a little._

Ezran nodded sleepily and shuffled toward the wall to Runaan’s right, apparently intending to rest there.

“Is it dawn yet?” Runaan asked softly. He knew exactly where the Moon was, but the days were starting to blend together, and he couldn’t track the sun.

Ezran looked at him as he slid down the wall and sat, holding Bait in his lap. “No. Still dark out.”

Runaan merely nodded. Bait dimmed his glow and curled up to sleep. With no further ado, and no attempts at conversation, the two lost souls sought what rest they could find. Dreams found Runaan again—Rayla, young and giggling. Then sad, asking why. Crying brokenheartedly on his shoulder. Hard-eyed, accepting a butterfly sword from his own hands.

Footsteps awakened Runaan in the dark, sending a spike of adrenaline through his limbs. His chains clanked as he jerked awake. “Ezran.”

“Hmm, just five more minutes, Callum.”

“_Ezran_. Someone’s coming.”

The young king’s limbs sprawled as he woke fully, remembering where he was. Bait lit up and went rolling across the floor with a soft amphibian splat. Ezran gasped. “Oh no!” He scrambled to his feet, scooped Bait into his arms, and then froze.

There was nowhere to run.

Ezran’s wide, panicked eyes met Runaan’s.

The assassin’s tactical operations skill set kicked into gear.

Runaan recalled all the things Ezran had told him about Soren and Claudia, and what Viren had told them to do. Calculated by the position of the Moon exactly how long he’d been asleep. Judged that timing against his regular morning routine. The odds on his visitor’s identity suddenly clarified.

“Get behind me, Ezran.”

“What?”

“Hurry.”

The young king hesitated another heartbeat before bolting across the floor and squeezing himself between Runaan and the chilly stone wall. He turned sideways, ducking low and holding Bait tightly. “Shh, Bait, this isn’t hide and seek. No glowing, okay?”

“Shh yourself,” Runaan cautioned with a grunt. “_Ngh_. Get off my—”

The door opened, and Runaan tried to feign sleep, but he couldn’t lower his head with Ezran standing on his ponytail, so he simply glowered into the bright light. “What do you want?” he growled toward the silhouette in black leggings and a long, flared tunic.

“Good morning to you, too, Grumplestiltskin,” Claudia responded saucily. She held a tray in one hand, but she didn’t come in. “Look, I’ve got an early appointment with a dusty road, so can we keep this short today? If I bother walking in, will you eat?”

Runaan tipped his head down as far as he could and felt his scalp burn, though the angle showed off his long dark horns. “What do you think?”

“Fine. Whatever. You think _I_ was annoying? You have no idea what you’re in for, Elf. And you’ll definitely wish you’d eaten something first. Good luck with my dad while I’m gone.” Claudia pulled the door shut with a thump.

Ezran’s sigh of relief was a long, faint wheeze. He’d been holding himself tight with fear, but he melted into a slump, jabbing his little shoulder into Runaan’s back.

“She’s gone. And I’d appreciate it if you’d stop standing on my hair now.”

“Oh. Sorry.” Ezran took a couple deep breaths and stepped out of his hiding place, shifting out of Runaan’s reach out of habit. He paused and inched a step closer, though, looking guilty and grateful and very, very confused. “You didn’t have to do that.” Ezran’s voice was a whisper, thick with icemelt, laden with strange, old sediments he didn’t understand.

Runaan simply returned his gaze. That he had done it at all surprised him, too. He’d acted on instinct. And that instinct hadn’t had anything to do with killing. Runaan would have to sort through the implications of that later, though.

“How did you know that would work?” Ezran pressed. “If that had been Lord Viren, or if Claudia had walked in… How did you know?”

Runaan hadn’t known for sure, of course. But he’d taken a very good guess. Soren ordered to kill the princes. He wouldn’t go without his magically talented sister, who brought Runaan a tray of food he refused every morning like clockwork. She’d come early today because they were heading out after Rayla and Callum. And, so they thought, Ezran. Runaan deflected with a question of his own. “Why did you trust me?”

Ezran and Bait looked at each other. Bait let out a grumpy groan. “Maybe so, Bait.” He looked back at Runaan. “That hallway isn’t really long, but you warned me with plenty of time to hide. That’s what Callum and my dad would’ve done. It felt… right to trust you.”

Runaan blue gaze drifted as he contemplated the implications of his actions. “I told you. I made my choice, and I will not unmake it.”

Ezran nodded once, thoughtfully. “You said… last time, you said you were cold.”

Runaan studied him sharply. “I said it was cold in here.”

“Well… you’re right. It is. Do you… I can put Bait on your shoulder for a while, if you want. He’s nice and warm. Maybe by your binding?”

“No, I don’t think that’s good idea. The cold and the…” Runaan pressed his lips shut on the rest of that sentence, for some reason wishing to protect the boy from the knowledge of what was happening to his arm. “Keeping it elevated helps, but heat would just make it hurt more.”

“Oh, okay then.” Ezran looked down.

Bait glowered at Runaan silently. Runaan studied the glow toad with narrow eyes, and their staring contest dragged out. A tiny, sly smile crossed Runaan’s lips. “But I suppose you can set him on my other shoulder. For a bit.”

Ezran looked up with a hopeful expression. “It won’t hurt you? I mean, because you’re a Moonshadow or anything.”

“No. Moon reflects Sun. We’re not scorched by it.”

Bait grumbled at that, and Ezran balanced him gently across Runaan’s right shoulder. “No claws, Bait. He doesn’t have a shirt on. Be nice.”

Another grumpy protestation.

“Bait. He saved us.”

Bait turned his round head just far enough to look at Runaan, who eyed him speculatively. The glow toad let out a grumbly sigh and relaxed across the top of Runaan’s shoulder, letting his tail drape down the assassin’s back beside his ponytail.

Runaan felt a light shiver prickle across his skin as Bait’s soft warmth began to relax his aching shoulder muscles. Bait felt it and flickered a bright orange for a moment. Runaan’s eyes slid shut, and his breathing deepened for a few breaths as he indulged the gentle soothing feeling.

Then his breath tightened. “Take him off.”

“Already?”

“Please, Ezran.”

The little king scooped Bait off and held him again. “Was he hurting you?”

Runaan looked away. “No.”

“Something’s wrong. You’re upset.”

Runaan shot him a disbelieving look and rattled his chains.

Ezran looked embarrassed. “No, I mean… I upset you just now, somehow. I didn’t mean to.”

“You didn’t.”

“Runaan…”

Runaan closed his bright blue eyes, shutting out the sight of Ezran and his glowing companion. “Don’t be soft with me, Ezran.”

“Because?”

“For the same reason humans don’t name their farm animals.”

Ezran’s voice shot up in disbelief. “What?”

Runaan opened his eyes again, but he kept them downcast, and his voice was a soft monotone. “You may need to kill me someday. Don’t be soft with me.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I think I understand Moonshadow elves even less than I did before.”  
A genuine smile flickered across Runaan’s face. “You’re welcome.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think these two are on my mind so much of late because if there's one person Runaan truly needs to beg forgiveness from, it's Ezran. Sparing the prince's life wasn't enough. Runaan changed it, and not for the better. But sometimes it's hard to see your own flaws when your whole life is centered around addressing the flaws of others.
> 
> Anyway, enjoy.

Ezran’s next visit was, surprisingly, in the middle of the day.

“Because Claudia’s gone now,” he explained, when Runaan gave him a raised eyebrow of mild surprise.

“Lord Viren will grace me with his presence at some point. I won’t be able to protect you then.”

Hugging Bait tightly, Ezran stepped closer. His young features were uplit by the glow toad’s warm, steady light, and his blue eyes were troubled. “You killed my dad, but you saved my life. And not just by not shooting me this time. You protected me. I think I understand Moonshadow elves even less than I did before.”

A genuine smile flickered across Runaan’s face. “You’re welcome.”

Ezran shot the assassin a flat look. Then he relented. “I’m sorry I stepped on your hair, though. Why do you keep it so long?”

Runaan raised a baffled eyebrow. “Why do you care about my hair?”

Ezran shrugged one shoulder. “I guess it doesn’t seem very assassiny.”

The eyebrow lowered again. “Perhaps you shouldn’t assume anything further about me. You’ve gotten literally everything wrong so far.”

Ezran made a frustrated pout. “Maybe if you’d actually tell me anything, I wouldn’t have to make assumptions in the first place.”

Runaan studied Ezran for a long moment. Read his frustration in the corners of his eyes and his desire to connect in the hunch of his shoulders. The young king had lost all his family and friends the night of the full Moon, just as Runaan had. Neither of them had anyone else. They were bound together in a castle they couldn’t escape, by their isolation and by Harrow’s death, a binding just as tight as the one around Runaan’s left bicep.

“Ask me, then.”

Ezran’s brows drew together. “Ask you what?”

“Whatever you want. I’m not going anywhere.”

“You could just lie to me.”

“Don’t be rude, Your Majesty. I did just save your life.” A flash of sass graced Runaan's lips.

Ezran’s eyes narrowed. “Now who’s being rude? I’m only king because you killed my dad.”

At that, Runaan blinked. Silently, he conceded Ezran’s point. “What should I call you, then?”

Ezran glanced toward the door as if he wanted to leave, but then he thought better of it. “Just Ezran. I’m just Ezran.”

He was not “just” Ezran, but Runaan nodded along with the illusion. “As you like, then. But I won’t lie to you. Lying is not our way, any more than wanton killing is.”

Ezran stepped forward, aggressive in his distress. “Then why? Why did you kill him?”

Runaan’s eyes flickered across Ezran. He stood close enough to touch now, but the assassin didn’t move a muscle. “I’ve already told you why.”

“No, why _you_? Why did _you_ come? Why did _you_ kill him? Why did you agree to do this?” Tears pooled in Ezran’s eyes, and his gaze clung to Runaan’s face.

_Nowhere to hide now_. Runaan had taken a life again, but he couldn’t skip back across the border this time, leaving all his consequences behind. He stared into Ezran’s damp eyes and felt the weight of the young boy’s sorrow. A son who had lost his father. A king of Runaan’s own creation, yes, but an orphan as well.

_I did this._

“You would not understand,” he said softly. But the words sounded flat to his own ears.

_A lie. Not in content, but in intent._

And Ezran caught him in it. “Say it anyway. I can’t figure out what you never say. And you did say to ask. Don’t be a jerk.”

_I did. I did this._

_I must be truly desperate._

_The dead are never desperate._

_What is this child doing to me?_

“I took your father because…” Runaan forced his eyes onto Ezran’s, but he couldn’t say it. He just couldn’t. Not while looking Harrow’s son in the face. Shaken by the power of his own discomfort, the silent wailing deep within his own soul, Runaan drew a shuddering breath and looked down. He closed his eyes and felt a long-held illusion falling away, leaving him to admit defeat. Admitting failure. Failure of a kind he hadn’t expected.

A failure to remain hard enough to do whatever it took.

A soft sound escaped his lips, somewhere between a breath of a sob and the ghost of a laugh. _Maybe Ezran does understand interrogation techniques, after all._

Runaan spoke with his eyes shut. Dark truths were more comfortable when surrounded by more darkness. “I’m very good at what I do. This mission was too important to fail. The Dragon Queen chose me. And I accepted.”

Runaan opened his eyes and found Ezran shaking his head in disappointment. “I thought you were brave. But you’re a coward.”

Runaan’s eyebrows gathered like affronted storm clouds.

Ezran continued, “You can’t even say it, can you? You’re literally chained up for your crime. You _got caught doing it_. And you _still_ can’t admit what you did! _Say it_!”

Baffled and exasperated, Runaan let out a hard sigh. “I just did.”

“You didn’t say _anything_. You didn’t— When you do something wrong, you’re supposed to take responsibility for it. Don’t they teach you that in Xadia?” Ezran blurted.

Runaan’s face closed down, but his cold, sharp gaze held Ezran’s captive, a mouse mesmerized by a snake. “I killed the king because I’m the best assassin in Xadia. I killed your father because he’s a murderer and murderers don’t deserve to live. And from where I sit, Ezran, that wasn’t wrong.”

A tear leaked across Ezran’s cheek, but he didn’t look away from Runaan. “That’s better,” he breathed. “That’s the truth. That’s your truth. Well,” he continued, swallowing hard, gulping back more tears, “here’s my truth. You’re a terrible person.”

Runaan’s gaze didn’t falter. “Who just saved your life. I told you to ask me anything, Ezran, but I never said you’d enjoy my answers.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I told you not to be soft with me.”  
“I remember.”  
“You’re doing it anyway.”  
“You’re not the boss of me.”

Ezran didn’t return for two days, but Viren made his first visit to Runaan’s cell. The shock of the tall mage’s silhouette at the door rather than the short king filled Runaan’s stomach with ice. He hid his opinions behind a grimace and promised himself he’d say nothing.

But Viren hadn’t come to talk. He took what he came for and departed without looking back, his tray laden with what he’d lightly referred to as _samples_.

Runaan was left hanging in his chains, gasping through his teeth against the new pains that Viren gifted him. The dark behind his eyelids hurt too much, so he left his eyes open, desperate for the faint glow from his own hair. That was fading, though. Too much time out of the moonlight.

_Not much of a Moonshadow if my hair doesn’t glow._ He huffed a small chuckle at his own dark humor, but the motion cost him. Runaan spent the next four eternities breathing through the throbbing pain in his head and other various places.

He was so focused on his next breath, and the one after that, that he twitched in surprise when Ezran spoke near his ear.

Ezran skittered back a step as Runaan’s head rose in alarm, both of them wide-eyed in the faint light of Bait’s softest glow. “Runaan, you’re breathing pretty hard. Are you okay?”

Runaan’s breath hissed through his teeth. “I’m afraid my social calendar has already been filled today.”

“Oh _no_. Lord Viren.”

Runaan let his eyes slide shut. A thread of tension slipped from his shoulders—the little king’s presence actually seemed reassuring. Or perhaps Runaan was simply relieved that Viren hadn’t found the boy yet. An odd thing to take comfort in, but nonetheless, he was glad Ezran had come to no harm. “You shouldn’t have come.”

“Because I’m still mad at you, or because it’s not safe?”

Runaan’s shallow breathing caught on a grunt of pain. “Either will do.”

Ezran’s voice was hesitant. “I think it’s something else. You don’t want me to see you like this.”

Runaan grimaced. “Not my finest hair day.”

Ezran shifted closer and leaned around Runaan, looking at his long ponytail. “Did he cut it?”

“Some of it.”

The boy studied him soberly, unsure what to say. “I don’t like getting my hair cut, either,” he finally offered.

Runaan breathed through a quick smile, but he didn’t quite have the breath for a witty reply. It felt like Ezran was offering him the tiniest sliver of… understanding? Commiseration, at least. Forgiveness was still long over the horizon.

“Do you want me to stay?” Ezran finally asked, low and soft. Bait let out a rumble.

Runaan closed his eyes and gathered himself to reply. It took a few breaths until he could crack one eye open and study the little king. “Why would I want you to stay?”

Ezran shrugged. “Callum would stay with me when I was sick. And also this one time when I broke a toe falling off a bridge into a stream and had to lie in bed for a few days. He told me that’s what our mom used to do for him when he was— Before she—“ Ezran shook off his unfinished thoughts. “But Claudia wants to be left alone when she’s sick. I don’t think she likes people seeing her vulnerable.” He glanced at Runaan. “You seem like a ‘leave me alone’ kind of person. But I figured it wouldn’t hurt to ask.”

Runaan managed to lift his head long enough to fix Ezran with a long, puzzled look. “If I say I wish to be alone, you could simply stay to annoy me.”

Ezran’s flat expression returned in full force. “You must have terrible friends. Doesn’t anyone treat you nice?”

Runaan’s eyes widened defensively. “I’m not among friends here, Ezran. I’m among humans. Humans who killed all my friends.” He looked away sharply.

As Runaan turned his head, something seemed to catch Ezran’s eye. He stepped closer, studying Runaan’s hair just behind his ear. “What’s this?”

“What are you doing?”

“You have something in your hair. Did Lord Viren put it there?”

Runaan sat up straight with difficulty and turned his head toward Ezran so the boy couldn’t see the mess in his hair. “Leave it.”

“It looks like dust.”

“Ezran.”

“More light, Bait.” The glow toad complied, and Runaan turned away from the sudden illumination with a soft growl. Ezran gasped. “Your horn.”

“It was broken before. I told you to leave it.”

“But that powder…”

Runaan braced against the instinct to flinch as he relived—heard—_felt_—the agonizing rasp of Viren’s metal file against the broken, living bone of his damaged horn. He had managed to jerk his head away once, and all of Viren’s “samples” had spilled into Runaan’s hair. But that only meant that Viren had taken a firmer grip on his horn and begun again. “I tried to tell him that if you can’t file your own fresh elf horn,” he sassed through gritted teeth, “storebought is fine. Viren’s a purist, though.”

Ezran’s eyes went wide. He backed up a step.

Runaan looked away. “Just leave it. Just go.”

But the boy lingered. Smothered in layers of pain and anger, Runaan was about to snap at him when Ezran finally lurched into motion. Without a word, he left, pulling the cell door shut behind him.

Runaan slumped forward in his chains again and began to concentrate on breathing through the throbbing in his head. He got about twenty breaths in and back out again when the door opened again.

_Moon and shadow, what now? Can’t an elf die in peace?_

But it was Ezran again. Bait rode atop his hair. In his hands, the little king carried a short, fat stone jar.

He approached Runaan and stopped a few feet in front of him. Taking off the jar’s lid, he tilted it so Runaan could see its contents in Bait’s glow. A clear gel.

“I found it in the cupboards yesterday. It’s made from cattails. Do you have cattails in Xadia?” Ezran kept his tone low and easy, as if soothing a skittish beast.

_That’s what I am. A skittish beast_. “What’s it for?”

“For your horn. It’ll numb the pain.”

Utterly confused, Runaan could only stare at Ezran. Finally, he managed a soft “Why?”

“Lord Viren shouldn’t have done that to you.”

“But I—you know what I’ve done, Ezran.”

Ezran’s expression firmed. “Callum said once that vengeance is a cycle that won’t ever end. You killed my dad, and now Lord Viren wants to kill you. Then the elves will come for revenge, and we’ll attack them back. It never ends. Unless someone chooses to end it.”

Runaan managed a slow blink of surprise. “This from the boy who stepped out from hiding on the battlements and nearly got himself shot?”

Ezran ignored the taunt. “He said it to Rayla. While she had a sword pointed at him.”

Runaan deflected again. “I’m sensing an unhealthy trend in Callum’s conversational habits.”

Ezran pursed his lips. “Rayla listened. Will you?”

Runaan stared at Ezran with a kind of baffled fascination. The boy was entirely serious. Of all the tortures and humiliations Runaan had been prepared to endure, he’d never expected to have to fend off simple _kindness_.

The assassin lowered his head, keeping his eyes on Ezran for a long moment from beneath hooded brows. “I told you not to be soft with me.”

“I remember.”

“You’re doing it anyway.”

“You’re not the boss of me.”

“I didn’t suppose I was.”

“You kind of sounded like you did.”

Runaan let out a short sigh. “You can choose not to listen to me.”

“Oh, I do. A lot.”

“I’m noticing that.”

Ezran nodded judiciously. “Perceptive. I can see why they put you in charge.”

With a flash of a smile, Runaan dropped his gaze and held still, offering his horn to Ezran’s mercy.

“Okay, hold still. Bait, you too.” Ezran stepped closer, but very slowly, and held the jar down where Runaan could see it. He dipped his fingers in it, and Runaan braced for a clumsy touch.

Instead, Ezran’s fingers lightly dropped a dollop of the numbing gel right onto his broken horn’s exposed center. The cold didn’t feel good, but the numbing began to kick in within seconds. Runaan couldn’t hold back a soft gasp of relief as the level of pain he was feeling fell sharply.

“Did Lord Viren hurt you anywhere else?” Ezran asked.

“Don’t waste any more of your precious medicine on me, Ezran.”

“That sounds like a ‘yes’,” Ezran’s reply was followed by a stubborn pout. Bait’s grumpy grumble made it clear he didn’t believe Runaan, either.

Light-headed from the sudden lack of pain in his horn, Runaan actually chuckled. “And you said you didn’t understand Moonshadows.”

“I’ll stay.”

“What?”

“You never told me whether you wanted me to stay or go. But I’ll stay, for a while.”

Runaan slumped back against the wall, studying Ezran. He felt another laugh bubbling up in his chest, though it came out as a silent whuff. “Bait can stay, too.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ezran needs a father figure.  
Runaan needs someone to take care of.  
Neither of them has anyone else.  
Except for the man who threatens them both.

“So why do you have such long hair?” Ezran prompted.

“Because I don’t cut it.”

“Wow, the Moonshadow elves should promote you to General Obvious.”

A short silence ensued, during which Runaan got his smile under control. “I’ll be sure to mention your royal recommendation to the Dragon Queen.”

***

“Do you eat glow toads?” Ezran sat with his feet splayed out in front of him against a wall.

Runaan sighed. “No, do you?”

“Eew, no. Bait’s my friend!”

“What about other glow toads?”

“No. That doesn’t seem very nice, now that I know Bait. Besides, they’re more for big fish than for people.”

Runaan looked over. “So you eat big fish.”

“My dad catches—caught—trophy fish every summer. He serves—he used to serve them at his midsummer feast here in the castle. I don’t go, though.”

“Because of Bait.”

“I mean I don’t go fishing. Because I can hear the glow toads.”

“But you eat the catch? Can you hear them, too?”

Ezran huffed softly. “I’m here to make you feel better, not so you can make me feel worse.”

***

“Ezran.”

“Yeah, Runaan?” The perkiness in the little king’s voice meant he’d noticed how little Runaan initiated conversation. If he was speaking now, it was because it was important.

“May I ask for your help?”

Ezran climbed to his feet. “What do you need?”

“My nose itches.”

“What, really?”

Runaan’s grin was brief but warm. “No, not really. But I… could use some more of that numbing gel.”

Ezran complied, eager to help. Runaan held still for the boy’s gentle fingers. “Better?”

Runaan sighed, shoulders releasing their knotted tension, as the gel took effect. “Yes.”

“Good.” Ezran headed back to sit with Bait.

“Ezran.”

The little king paused and turned back. “Yeah?”

“Thank you.”

Their blue eyes met for a long moment. Ezran simply nodded. Runaan dropped his gaze to the floor. He had much to consider.

***

“This is gonna sound weird, but can I brush your hair?”

“What? No.”

Just to get the powdered horn out,” Ezran added.

“No.”

***

“Are you hungry?”

“What?”

“I’m going to go find some food. Bait’s looking peaky.” Ezran stepped to the center of the room, arms around his glow toad, and looked at Runaan with those big blue eyes. “I can get you something. Anything you want.”

Runaan stared at him. His heart hammered wildly, erratic with exhaustion, pain, and dehydration.

“Please. Please don’t die.” Ezran’s voice cracked.

Runaan’s expression softened, though more from defeat than choice. “Why not, Ezran? Tell me why not.”

“I don’t want…” Ezran began, but he choked up. Bait let out a soft groan of sympathy.

“Ezran,” Runaan began gently. “My life serves only Viren’s purpose. And his purpose is to make war on my people. He will turn me into fuel for his dark spells and use them against those I love. Those I sought to protect. I don’t want to die. But I will do anything to protect my people. Anything. Do you understand?” The assassin kept his voice soft and low. Rayla hadn’t understood at first, either, and when she had, she hadn’t liked it.

Ezran stepped closer. His young face was uplit by Bait’s soft golden glow, bringing out bright gleams in his blue eyes. The glow toad’s light reflected off unshed tears in Ezran’s eyes, but his bottom lip was firm and he held Runaan’s gaze. “You’re the only person I have right now. The only person I can trust. And not just because you’re chained up. You saved my life. If you die, Runaan…” Ezran looked down and blinked hard. Tears spilled down his cheeks, landing on Bait’s head. “I’ll be alone again. If I have to watch you die, it’ll be like… I know it’s not the same, but… it’ll feel like watching my dad die. _Please_.” That bottom lip trembled now, and Ezran’s eyes shone with more tears. “Please don’t leave me alone. I don’t know what to do.”

Runaan’s gaze sharpened. If he died, Viren couldn’t use him. But if Ezran died… What was Runaan’s honor worth if he’d passively protect the child king only to die out from under him, knowing Viren would catch him eventually?

His left arm throbbed weakly. His head pounded. He hadn’t felt anything below his knees since the day before yesterday. He gave himself three more days, tops. And yet here stood the uncrowned king of Katolis, begging with tears in his eyes not to be left alone.

_I want to live._

“Berry juice.”

Ezran’s eyebrows drew together. “What?”

“If you can find it. I should start soft.”

“Yes!” In his excitement, Ezran threw an arm around Runaan’s neck and hugged him tightly, pressing Bait against his good shoulder. “I’ll be right back, I promise.”

Ezran slipped out of the cell with Bait riding his hair, leaving Runaan rocked by the sudden show of affection. He stared at the cell door in baffled fascination. Then, finally, he understood.

_Rayla. You climbed into my heart and made a nest there. Though you’ve flown now, the nest remains._ Runaan lowered his head. He was too dehydrated to tear up, but the corners of his eyes prickled uncomfortably anyway. Choosing to live for Ezran was going to hurt, on many levels.

The door creaked open. Runaan looked up. His tummy managed a quiet rumble.

_That didn’t take long_— Runaan’s silent commentary broke and crumbled as his eyes landed on the lanky figure of Viren, silhouetted against the blue crystal light from the hallway.

The rumble shivered into a cramp, and Runaan’s ears snapped up. _Ezran_. He glanced past the mage, hoping to see a clear hallway. But a swift, short shadow dashed past the far end of the corridor.

Viren misread his expression, sauntered in with a smug smirk. “And here I thought Moonshadow elves weren’t supposed to show fear. Don’t worry, Elf. This will hurt you a lot more than it’ll hurt me.”

Runaan bared his teeth. “I am already dead.”


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ezran rested a steady little hand on Runaan’s shoulder again. “A wise elf once told me that this is my castle, and I can do what I want here. Right now, I want you to feel like more than a bunch of elf parts that Lord Viren’s taking one by one.”

“…Runaan?”

The soft whisper brushed the edges of Runaan’s consciousness, a butterfly from the past.

“Runaan, are you okay?”

A blue-eyed, puffy-haired butterfly with wings that glowed golden. And made grumpy noises.

Pressure. A warm little hand on his shoulder. “Oh. You’re not.” A pause. “I want to help.”

Runaan thought he must’ve made some small sound of acknowledgement, because the light moved in the room, shifting more brightly against his eyelids.

“Stay here, Bait. I’ll be right back.”

Runaan opened his mouth to ask a question about the light. Tasted blood. Closed his mouth again.

A warm, clawed foot touched his knee. A sympathetic grumble.

Runaan’s eyes flew open, and his ears stiffened. He jerked his head up, searching for Ezran. The door to the cell was open, but the young king had gone, leaving the glow toad with Runaan. The assassin turned his head and spat a wad of blood onto the floor. He tongued the new hole among his teeth and winced. Viren had gotten what he came for, after all, even if he’d had to knock Runaan out to get it. He fuzzily wondered how much Ezran had heard. Hoped it wasn’t much.

Ezran returned, bearing a bowl of water and a soft cloth. He set the bowl down by Runaan’s knee, but he paused, his troubled eyes on Runaan’s face.

“Don’t worry about the berry juice you were going to bring me. I’ve rather lost my appetite,” Runaan said carefully. His words came out soft and rounded as he avoided making any hard, sharp sounds that aggravated his aching jaw.

Ezran’s bottom lip shook for a moment, but he took a deep breath and said, “I’ll clean you up. This isn’t right. I’m not letting you get treated like this in my own castle.”

“Ezran… you can’t.”

Ezran ignored him. “Bait, can you warm the water a little?”

The glow toad dipped his tail in the water for a few moments. Ezran tested it with a finger and nodded. “Thanks, Bait.” He got the cloth wet, wrung it out, and hesitantly reached for Runaan’s bloodied face.

Runaan pulled away. “I told you, Ezran, you can’t do this.” But his quick words jarred his mouth, and he winced.

Ezran rested a steady little hand on Runaan’s shoulder again. “A wise elf once told me that this is my castle, and I can do what I want here. Right now, I want you to feel like more than a bunch of elf parts that Lord Viren’s taking one by one.”

Runaan’s blue eyes widened and locked onto Ezran’s. A soft tingle shot down his spine as he realized that the young king not only believed him, but was acting on that belief. But that didn’t matter now. “You don’t understand. If you clean me up, he’ll know I’m not alone.”

Ezran leaned in, eyes intent. “You’re _not_ alone.”

“He wouldn’t change his behavior with _me_, Ezran. I’m not going anywhere. But he will start looking for _you_. And he will find you. You must remain hidden. That means you cannot help me in any visible way.”

Ezran looked down, and Runaan felt the knot between his shoulder blades begin to relax. He’d persuaded the little king to save himself, and that wasn’t nothing—

“Are you empowered to negotiate on behalf of Xadia?” Ezran’s quiet tone was very formal.

Runaan blinked. “Am I what?”

“I’m the King of Katolis. I speak for my kingdom. And I want to negotiate with you. Officially. Are you empowered to speak for your people?”

Runaan shifted his train of thought. “What makes you think I might be?”

“The Dragon Queen wouldn’t send just anyone on your mission. If I ever… I’d want to send the best I had. For any job. If you can’t make binding agreements, will you at least listen to my proposal and consider carrying it to your queen?”

Runaan’s brows lifted tiredly. Freedom was a foreign notion after so many days on his knees in an enemy dungeon. But Ezran hadn’t asked him to _do_ anything. Just to _consider_ doing so. And if humoring the boy distracted him from giving himself away…

He did Ezran the honor of meeting his gaze seriously as he offered a sharp nod of assent. “I will consider it.”

Ezran took another big breath, and his brows furrowed as if thinking very hard, working his way through what he wanted to say next. “Okay, then. But I don’t want to negotiate with you like this.” He gestured to the blood that had dripped down Runaan’s chin while he hung unconscious. “I think it’ll give you the wrong impression, and I don’t want you to take that back to your queen. So I want to change the conditions we negotiate under.”

Runaan’s eyes dropped to the bowl. He shared a look of consideration with Bait, who offered his opinion in the form of a soft grumble. “He _will_ find you if you help me.”

“I have a plan for that.” Ezran’s voice was surprisingly steady.

Runaan studied him for a long moment, trying to follow the probable thought pattern of a young human king. “I won’t like this plan of yours, will I?”

Ezran’s serious expression broke into a broad, smug grin. “Oh, I think you’ll see a couple of benefits. But before I tell it to you, I need to know that you trust me. Or it’s not going to work. Do you trust me, Runaan? Even just a little?”

Runaan settled back onto his heels to study Ezran more thoroughly, stifling a groan as he did so. “I don’t think you know what you’re doing, Ezran. I think you’ll get yourself killed.”

Ezran folded his fingers around the wet cloth he held. “Would that upset you?”

A tiny smile tugged at the corner of Runaan’s mouth for a moment, though the effort made him wince. “I’m afraid it would. I invested a lot in letting you live. My decision was not made lightly. If you die now, the world will shudder from the ripples of it. They’ll reach Xadia. They’ll reach Rayla. Your brother. The Queen of the Dragons.” He leaned forward, eyes sharp with pain and intent. “You cannot die, Ezran. The world needs you.”

Ezran’s eyes widened as uncertainty spread across his face. “Runaan, I’m ten years old. I don’t really know what that means.” He gulped, but his eyes remained determined. “What about you?”

“What about me?”

“Do you… need me for anything? Besides saving the world, or whatever?”

_Do you trust me, Runaan? Even just a little?_

Runaan heaved a slow, reluctant sigh and lifted his chin, while his eyes fell to the cloth Ezran held. He looked aside after a moment and tilted his face toward the pre-negotiation service Ezran offered, giving tacit permission.

Ezran’s eyebrows rose with pleased surprise. “Okay, hold still. I’ll try not to hurt you.”

Runaan let out a soft snort. “You. Hurt me. Don’t be absurd.” But he smiled as he said it.

Ezran carefully cleaned the blood from Runaan’s face. Most of it had run down his chin while he hung in his chains after Viren’s tender visit. Runaan had seen far worse, even from himself, but Ezran was clearly upset. Runaan gingerly tongued the fresh hole in his jaw and murmured, “It’s not as bad as it looks.”

Ezran paused and gave Runaan a frustrated look. “Not as bad as it looks? It _looks_ like my dad’s best friend locked you in a secret dungeon where he can do whatever he wants with you, and no one can stop him. It _looks_ like he sent his own kids—my _friends_—to hunt my brother down, and you’re right—he’ll kill me if he finds me alone here. Just like he’ll kill you, eventually. But you’re going to sit there and tell me it’s ‘not as bad as it looks’? Elf humor is _really_ weird.”

Runaan burst into quiet laughter, even though it hurt. He couldn’t help it. The low rumble of his amusement rippled around the dungeon cell and sank into the stone until it sounded like the castle itself was chuckling. “Ezran, I’m afraid I like you more than a little. You would make a half-decent Moonshadow.”

Ezran rinsed out the cloth. “Thanks. You’d make a half-decent ten-year-old king.” Ezran swiped gently at the last traces of blood, leaving Runaan looking far more presentable.

Runaan held still for him, feeling a mix of familiar and new softness welling inside him. “You’re a far kinder king than I would be.”

“Maybe. But you’re not dead yet, so there’s still time to learn new things.”

Runaan’s eyebrows rose. “Is that a human saying? It’s very Moonshadow.”

“It’s an Ezran saying. I made it up a few days ago—oh!”

Ezran had accidentally brushed against Runaan’s jaw where Viren had yanked out his tooth, and Runaan winced away. “It’s nothing.”

“You’re a terrible liar.”

Runaan managed a brief smirk. “Thank you.”

“What did he do? Did he… did he…?”

Runaan shook his head dismissively. “One tooth. It’s gone ahead to reserve a spot for me in the spirit world. I expect I’ll find it impatiently tapping a root and wondering what took the rest of me so long.” Runaan kept his tone light—he’d said such comically morbid things to Rayla when she was little—but Ezran’s brows lowered further as Runaan kept talking.

Harrow.

Runaan’s brows bent. “Forgive me, Ezran, that was insensitive—”

“Wait right there. I’m about to formally open negotiations with Xadia.”

The cold thread in Ezran’s voice gave Runaan pause, and he mentally yanked open all the doors of possibility that surrounded him. He’d shut them one by one—the darker ones, the more painful ones—as he and Ezran had gotten to know each other. But now, anything was possible once more. His life could veer in any direction at all. Potential futures breathed chill fate through fog-filled archways he couldn’t quite see behind him. They howled and muttered down dark, twisting hallways, casting red shadows across his eyes.

Runaan clenched his good hand into a fist. _If he kills me, I still deserve it._

Ezran stalked out with the bowl of water.

Bait remained behind. He looked after Ezran, then glanced up at Runaan. His bulbous eyes seemed wary.

Runaan sighed softly and swallowed a lump in his throat. “We don’t regret often,” he murmured. “It’s not in our nature. But… I do, now. Don’t tell him I said so, hmm?”

Bait grumped at him sharply, but he leaned his little body against Runaan’s injured knee and let some warmth seep through Runaan’s boot.

Runaan blinked down at the irritable little creature and managed a soft smile. “Ethari complains sometimes that I’ve connected to the Grumpy Arcanum. Perhaps you have as well.”

Bait brightened to a golden orange for a moment.

Runaan winced in the strong light. “Now you’re just showing off.”

Bait’s grumble was smug.

Ezran stalked back in, holding something in each hand. “Negotiations are now open. Which do you want first?”

Runaan examined his offerings. One hand held the jar of numbing gel. The other held a key.

Runaan’s gaze leaped to Ezran’s, squinting with hard intensity. One final door flew open in his mind, and through it blazed the cool, clear light of the Moon.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which someone nicks Viren's negotiation tactic and uses it for himself.

“I want the key.” Runaan’s eyes glittered, watching Ezran’s every move.

“I thought so,” Ezran replied. He approached Runaan’s good arm, slid the key into the manacle’s lock, and fumbled with its release.

A squad of options flitted through the trees of Runaan’s mind at high speed, leaping, darting, bright-eyed, blades out.

He let them approach, flash past, and run on without him. The soft rustle of their passage, the adrenaline rush they brought, faded.

The manacle clanked open. His arm fell from its iron grip, and he gasped with the unfamiliar motion, the sheer weight of his own limb, which he hadn’t had to lift in over a week.

Ezran steadied him. “Easy now.”

Runaan let out a soft grunt and rolled his shoulder slowly. Various cramps along his spine and below his shoulder blade complained about his radical decision.

Bait grumped as well, still pressed next to Runaan’s bad knee. Runaan slowly reached for him, reacquainting himself with long-constricted muscles and hand-eye coordination. His fingers rested briefly atop Bait’s head. “Bait is a quality companion, Ezran.”

Ezran brightened and smiled. “I’ve always thought so. You okay? Ready for the other side?” he asked.

“Not just yet. I need a quick stretch. Make sure everything’s working properly.” Runaan held his newly freed arm out. His eyes rested gently on Ezran.

Ezran took a moment to study Runaan’s gesture. Then he leaned into him, resting his warm arms around Runaan’s neck.

Runaan’s eyes widened as Ezran gently collided with him. After a moment, he let his arm close around Ezran’s back and held the little king gently. It was his first hug since leaving home. His first with a human child. With a king. “Thank you, Ezran.”

Ezran stepped back and studied him with a sober expression. “We’ve got a long way to go. And I’m not sure what direction it’ll take. But we can’t stay here. Either of us. Other arm?”

Runaan took a breath and held it, nodding. He wasn’t sure if the release of his left arm would hurt more or less than that of his right. But Ezran was right: Viren finding the two of them in mid-escape would definitely hurt the most.

Ezran unlocked the other manacle more easily, and he held Runaan’s swollen forearm in his other hand, ready to catch it.

Runaan was silently grateful. He wasn’t sure he could’ve caught it, or stopped it from smacking into the floor.

Ezran took the weight of Runaan’s damaged arm and eased it down into Runaan’s lap, where the assassin cupped it lightly in his other hand. “How’s it feel?” Ezran asked.

Runaan took a breath and considered. It wasn’t good, but there was no point in worrying the boy. “I’m more concerned with whether I can walk. How much weight can you carry?” he asked in a serious tone.

Ezran’s eyes widened, and he studied Runaan’s legs, bent under him unmoving for the last week.

Runaan chuckled softly. “I’m only joking. Just give me a moment to get some feeling back, and I should be able to limp along with you well enough.” But the look he gave Ezran was speculative.

“Don’t worry,” Ezran replied. “We don’t need to go very far.”

With a relieved sigh and a nod, Runaan shifted his weight. He dragged his left leg out straight using his right hand, but he hesitated to move his right leg so brusquely. Though he couldn’t feel his knee because his legs were asleep, he knew how damaged it was from that terrible battle in Harrow’s chamber.

Ezran saw his hesitation. “Let me.” Carefully, he picked up Runaan’s leg by his ankle and shifted the limb straight, setting it down gently. “How’s that?”

Runaan managed to suppress a growl of pain, releasing it instead as a muffled grunt. “Do human legs fall asleep and wake with pins and needles?”

“Sure do! You got pins and needles?”

Runaan’s breathing went swift and shallow. “I have swords and daggers. I’ll need a little more time than I thought.”

Ezran pocketed the manacle key and held up the numbing gel. “I have just the thing to pass the time.”

After several minutes, Runaan was vastly more comfortable. Ezran had dabbed some of the gel on Runaan’s broken horn, and Runaan had swiped some against the spot of his missing tooth. Ezran had even gotten permission to apply some of the medicine around the binding on Runaan’s arm. And the feeling had returned to Runaan’s legs. It had come bearing letters of complaint and waving subpoenas—and glow toad claw marks, since Bait had insisted on “helping” by walking up and down Runaan’s legs the entire time—but it _had_ come back.

Runaan wiggled his toes. “I think we should go.”

“Okay. How can I help? Bait, you should get down now.”

Bait grumbled and hopped down. The moment he did, Runaan pressed himself up using the wall and his good leg. He stood leaning against the cold stones with his good hand, cradling his left arm around his waist.

“Oh. Wow, okay. That was easy.” Ezran opened his arms and Bait jumped up into them. The king looked up at Runaan, and his expression changed. “It hurt, though. I can tell. Let’s go. I know a place you can rest. Do you want to lean on me?”

“Is this part of our official negotiations?”

Ezran bobbed his head. “Yup.”

“And if I decline?”

Ezran’s reply was lightly sassy. “You’ll probably fall over.”

“Hm.” Runaan sighed, still adjusting to how very short Ezran was—at least a couple of hands shorter than Rayla. “Well, I came into this cell with help. I suppose I can leave it the same way.”

Ezran’s expression was dubious. “And by help, you mean…”

Runaan offered a toothy grin as he rested his good hand on Ezran’s shoulder, pressing a small amount of his weight onto the king. It would serve no purpose to detail how Ezran’s friends had dragged him in here and locked him up. The little king was already disappointed in them. Afraid of them. “Assistance.”

Ezran shot him a suspicious glance. “Sure, okay. _Assistance_. Then let me _assist_ you out, as a show of good faith in our combined future. Ready? Step with me. I’ll go slow.”

Something eased and fluttered up in Runaan’s chest at Ezran’s soft, considerate words. He hadn’t said anything about the pain in his knee, but Ezran had observed it just the same, and now he was acting on his observations with sympathy and consideration.

_I have been wrong about him. There is at least one good human here in Katolis. And somehow, Moon bless me, it is the _king_. Despite all I have done to ruin him, he does this. For me. _Runaan let a shadowy smile play across his lips. _Ezran definitely understands interrogation techniques._

Together, one slow step at a time, the king and the assassin made their way out of the dungeon cell. The hallway stretched for eight eternities. Runaan worried with every sharp breath that they’d be caught before they reached the main room. Worried that he’d have to watch Ezran get caught. That he’d be unable to prevent it, given his long list of injuries.

Runaan squinted against the brighter glow of the blue crystals in the main room. In Ezran’s arms, Bait looked up at Runaan and let out a soft growl.

“Yes, Bait,” Runaan murmured, offering the glow toad a soft smirk. “Your glow is prettier than the crystals.”

“What? Are you two talking without me again?” Ezran complained softly. “Let’s go this way.” He led Runaan past a countertop and picked up a bold-patterned ceramic pitcher.

“What’s this?” Runaan asked.

“Your berry juice. I didn’t want Viren to find it here. It was just like this in the kitchen icebox already.”

Runaan didn’t believe in coincidences. “Was it, now? How interesting.”

The pair made their way through a low arch and down a further hallway. Runaan’s knee twinged with every step, but he was loath to add more weight to Ezran’s shoulder, so he gritted his teeth and limped as best he could. Ezran led him down two side passages, and soon Bait was their only source of light again. “Ezran, may I ask you something?” Runaan began.

“Sure. Just keep it down. There are vents here that lead to the courtyard.”

Runaan glanced upward, noting the small grates that lined the edges of the hall ceiling. “How long did you have that key?”

Ezran didn’t answer right away. Runaan let him think over his reply. The fact that he didn’t speak right away was a partial answer, anyway.

When Ezran did say something, it wasn’t what Runaan expected. “What would you have done with the key?”

“In your situation?”

“Yeah. And if you were ten.”

Runaan made a judicious frown. “That does make a difference.”

“I sure hope so. I don’t know much about Moonshadow elves, but Rayla’s pretty young, and she’s really intimidating.”

Runaan hid a proud smile in the dimness. “If I was very cautious, and very clever, I’d do what you did, Ezran. No matter how long you had that key, you didn’t offer to use it until you controlled the entire situation, and until you found me trustworthy enough. You didn’t even show it to me. And I jumped at the chance to be free, like you knew I would, which puts you in control. You’re calling the shots, Ezran. What’s your next move?”

“I call it a shivery shimmy.”

Runaan blinked. “What?”

Ezran gestured with the pitcher to a low gap in the wall, likely a hole for a drainage grating that had never been placed. “I think you can fit through there, right?” he said. “You’re tall but you’re really skinny.”

Runaan raised a doubtful eyebrow.

Bait grumbled at him.

Ezran let the glow toad hop down, and Bait waddled through the gap. Ezran looked up at Runaan. “Do you want to go next, or last?”

Runaan glanced back down the hallway toward Viren’s secret dungeon. “Last.”

“Somehow I knew you’d say that.” They sat on the narrow, dusty corridor floor. Ezran pushed the pitcher through first, then he wriggled through the gap on his back, pushing with his feet.

Runaan followed in ungainly fashion after wrapping his ponytail around his swollen hand. He held his head off the floor to keep his remaining horn from scraping along the stone, and he pushed gingerly with his injured leg until he could sit up on the far side of the wall and pull his legs in after him.

Runaan turned around to see where they were. Ezran stood on a short set of stairs and held out a hand to him, hugging the berry juice pitcher against his side. At Ezran’s feet, Bait glowed brightly, providing dramatic lighting. “Come on. Almost there.”

Runaan looked up at the little king, impressed despite himself. He took Ezran’s hand and hauled himself up. A few minutes and a few turns later, Ezran led him around one last corner. Bait scampered ahead and leaped onto a series of boxes and barrels until he sat atop a massive barrel in the center of a narrow stone room cluttered with an eclectic collection of supplies.

“Here we are. Home sweet home. Come on, I’ll show you where you get to sleep.”

“Sleep?” Runaan limped after Ezran as he led the way around Bait’s barrel and into a combination pillow fort and nest cradled among sturdy barrels and the odd box. Bait’s golden light lent the scene a nostalgic, adventurous air and painted the dusty stone walls with soothing illumination.

“Yeah, sleep. You should rest before we negotiate any further.”

Runaan stopped and braced his good hand atop a barrel. He studied Ezran in the glow toad’s bright light, and a slow smile spread across his face. “You’re very good at this.”

“At what? Being nice?”

Runaan’s certainty flickered, and he squinted for a moment, questioning himself. But he realized that, ultimately, it didn’t matter whether Ezran was playing him or not. “Yes. Being nice.”

Ezran turned to face him fully in the golden light. His blue eyes appeared nearly green. Like Harrow’s. “My dad taught me to be nice.”

Ezran’s simple statement smacked Runaan across the horns so fast that he twitched and nearly lost his balance, uncertain as it was. Ezran was definitely playing him, and playing him hard. “I… deserved that.”

The little king’s eyes were clear and light, even in the deep, lost room beneath his own castle. “Yes, you did. You deserve a lot of things for what you did. But you didn’t deserve what you got. I saved you from that. And I’m going to let you sleep as long as you want to.” Ezran rummaged on a makeshift shelf and produced a chipped cup. He poured it full of berry juice and handed it over.

Runaan took it silently. It smelled like summer. Like home. His stomach growled. “And then?”

“And then, we’ll continue our negotiations. Because you owe me. You made me King of Katolis, and you owe me for that.”

Runaan gulped the berry juice down and quietly held the cup out for more. Ezran poured. Runaan drank again. And a third time. The natural sugar in the berries hit him like a falling tree, like a hot rush of summer wind, and his head spun.

Ezran took him by the arm. “Sleep here. Bait will curl up with you. He likes you. Right, Bait?”

Bait hopped off the barrel and trotted toward a tapestry-covered pile of hay. Runaan sat with more grace than he felt he possessed and curled up on his side, protecting his purpling arm. Bait snuggled up against his chest and settled down to nap himself.

Ezran pulled another tapestry over Runaan to keep him warm. “Comfy?”

Runaan studied the tapestry’s design. “I’ve never slept between two stories of heroic human deeds before. Did these heroes become famous for killing elves?”

Ezran shrugged. “Probably.”

“How nice that these stories now get to shelter an elf from discovery.” Runaan barely finished speaking before a jaw-cracking yawn overtook him. He eyed Ezran sharply, as if suspecting an attack for showing such weakness.

Ezran studied him seriously. “You’re safe here while you sleep, Runaan. I promise. I don’t know what our negotiations will decide, but here’s a spoiler for you: I’m not going to kill you, or let you be killed, anywhere in my kingdom, or in my castle. That’s not what I want to talk to you about. You really are safe here, okay?”

Runaan believed him, though death was far from the only threat Runaan faced. His eyes fluttered shut, and he let Bait’s soft warmth seep into his skin. “Then I wish you wisdom, for my life is in your hands.”

As sleep stalked up around him like a gathering of shadows and pounced on him, dragging at his limbs, slowing his breath, weighing his eyelids, Runaan shivered in a way that had nothing to do with being cold. He was warm for the first time in over a week. But Runaan’s ears caught the faintest murmur from Ezran just as he drifted away.

“It’s what my dad would’ve wanted.”

Runaan dreamed, and dreamed, and dreamed of home.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ezran helps Runaan find some dignity. And some moonlight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As much as I enjoy yeeting Runaan into a bath, this chapter took a while. You don't want to rush a freshly freed elf through his cleansing process. And Bait loves water, so he had to be heavily involved. And then Ezran and all his tactical kindness. Lots to fit in here. Hope you enjoy. Serious chapter coming up next.

“I want to show you something.”

Ezran’s soft voice sifted through the layers of dreamy sleep that still hovered around Runaan’s horns like gentle golden clouds. He eased in a deep breath and began to take stock of what hurt, as he had every morning in the dungeon, before he remembered that, this morning, he was free.

His bright turquoise eyes popped open, eager to confirm his realization. He lay on his side, not having moved in the slightest. Bait still nestled against him, warm and solid. And that battle tapestry showcasing a human victory over Xadian forces still lay draped across him, keeping him warm and cozy in the most ironic way Runaan had ever seen.

Runaan fumbled for the Moon and found it just above the horizon, but the days had blended together for too long, stitched hard against one another with thready pains that strained and gathered time in uneven bunches. “What time is it?”

Ezran kept his voice low, as one did when one was being gentle. “It’s the middle of the night. Maybe two or three? I waited until you were awake.”

Runaan eased up onto his good arm. “I slept for over half a day?”

“Runaan, you slept for a day and a _half_. But don’t worry. No one has any idea where you are. I’ve been listening everywhere I can. Viren’s posted extra guards everywhere on double shifts, but they’re all on the battlements.”

Runaan’s eyes flicked to the room’s doorway. There was only one exit. “He’s trying to keep me from leaving.”

“Yeah. Because you saw the egg too, maybe.”

“No. He doesn’t know I saw the egg. You know why he wants me.”

“Don’t worry. He’s not going to find you.” Ezran crouched down beside him and hugged his own knees. “Do you have old castles and stuff in Xadia?”

“Of course. Much older than yours.” Runaan’s teasing grin was brief.

Ezran slitted his eyes at Runaan. “Okay, you don’t need to rub it in. Do they ever get rebuilt, or changed inside?”

Runaan considered. Xadian architecture was very different than what the humans considered to be fine stonework. Elves embraced symmetry and balance, attempting to effect an eternal design in every structure, one which would never need to change because all options had been considered from the start. But time did take its toll. Disasters—natural and unnatural—happened. “Sometimes, yes, they do.”

“And some parts get sealed off, and after a few hundred years everyone forgets they’re even there?”

Runaan looked around again. This stone, rough and dark, matched the outer walls of Katolis Castle and the battlements. But some of the walls near the king’s chamber were dressed much more smoothly. “How long since this part of the castle was in use?” Runaan asked.

Ezran shrugged. “I think around three hundred years. There was a big war back then. Maybe you’ve heard of it?”

Runaan’s smile was chilly. The Mage Wars were not something to be ignored, even in Xadia. _Especially_ in Xadia, considering what the mages were burning to fight each other for dominance. “I have.”

The little king nodded. “I figured. The castle took a lot of damage. It was almost totally rebuilt, twice. And somewhere in there, some sections got cut off from the others. Mostly. But I found them. And I want to show you something, now that you’re awake. Don’t worry. It’s just down the corridor a ways, still in this abandoned section. No one will see us.”

“What is it?”

Ezran wriggled nervously for a moment, but he got himself under control. He lifted his chin and gave Runaan a regal look. “Dignity.”

Runaan raised a white eyebrow.

Bait offered him a bit of grumpy commentary.

Runaan offered the glow toad a sassy frown. “Well, _you’re_ not wearing anything at _all_.”

Ezran giggled and held out a cup of berry juice. “Whenever you’re ready. I found some washing sand. I hope that’s okay?”

Runaan’s ears perked at the notion of getting clean. “How did you… You know what, it doesn’t matter.” He accepted the cup and drank it dry. “A midnight bath in an abandoned section of your castle sounds very appealing right now. Lead on.”

Bait led the way down the dusty old corridor, and Runaan leaned on Ezran’s shoulder again, limping along beside him. Ezran was right—they didn’t have far to travel. The plainly dressed stone walls were suddenly tiled with blue and white glaze, and then two white pillars whose style reminded Runaan of an old stronghold he’d seen built by Ocean elves framed a broad entry into an old-fashioned bath house. Old and unused, the bath area lay dusty and cold, with broken tables and chairs piled in one corner, folding wooden screens cracked underfoot, and towels reduced to useless rags. Hallways led toward the bathing pools, draped by swags of gray linen that had seen better centuries.

Runaan cast a doubtful eye down at Ezran.

“No, it’s okay. The plumbing is still good. The pools are fresh river water. They’re cold now, but we have Bait! You can have a nice warm bath. Plus, I brought in some towels last week. You can use one for yourself and one for your hair.”

Runaan’s eyebrows rose.

Ezran shot a patient look up at the tall assassin and led the way down a narrow hall. “Claudia needs a whole extra towel for her hair, and yours is even longer than hers. I know she does because this one time there was a whole swarm of bats that got into her rooms and she had to run out into the hall before her hair was dry. She was really grumpy all day. I mostly think Soren had something to do with the bats, because of the way he was trying way too hard to be sympathetic afterward. Callum’s the same way with me when he overdoes a prank.”

Runaan looked up as they entered a small stone room. A square pool lined with smooth blue tile was sunk about four feet into the floor and filled with fresh water. A stone bench ringed it below the water’s surface. The room smelled like a mysterious, lost cave, and Bait’s warm golden light only added to the nearly sacred hush in the room.

But something else pulled at Runaan. “Bait. Turn off your glow for a moment.”

Bait and Ezran exchanged a glance, and the room went dark.

Not completely dark, though. A sliver of moonlight painted the flat stones near the pool with iridescent white. An ancient window had been filled in, but imperfectly, allowing a thin slice of light to penetrate the outer stones.

Runaan stumbled forward before he realized he was moving, leaving Ezran’s half-formed question in the air behind him. He landed hard on his knees in the light, its beam just wide enough to caress his face, and lifted his eyes to its blazing glory. His arms hung loose at his sides, and he tilted his chin up until the moonlight drenched as much of his light-starved skin as possible. The force of its light soaking into him took his breath away, and he gasped, shoulders heaving, as if he’d been holding his breath for a week and a half. Shudders rippled across his shoulders, and he panted hard under the force of their spasms, falling forward onto his good hand. The moonlight soaked his hair, sent tingles spiraling around his horns, and sluiced down his back, and still he couldn’t catch his breath.

“Are you okay?” Ezran’s question was a whisper of concern.

Runaan nodded, eyes shut, still soaking up the light. “Much better now.”

“I didn’t know Moonshadow elves needed moonlight like that.” Ezran’s tone was apologetic.

“We usually don’t.” Runaan spoke through trembles that slowly began to fade.

“Oh. It’s because you were locked up for so long. I guess there is a downside to having magic, after all.”

“There’s a downside to being locked in a dungeon for so long, no matter who you are,” Runaan corrected.

“Yeah, of course. Sorry. Bait’s warming up the pool for you. And I got the washing sand. Is that what you use in Xadia?”

Runaan glanced over. Ezran held a wide ceramic jar filled with soft white sand. “It’s very good for hair.” He reached for the jar, and Ezran handed it over.

“You need any help with your boots or anything?”

Runaan shifted to sit with his legs crossed. “I’ll manage.”

“Okay. I’ll get Bait his own barrel, or he’ll insist on swimming with you. He really likes to jump off people’s heads, but your horn is broken, so he really shouldn’t do that right now.”

Runaan’s smile was brief, but genuine. “That’s very considerate of you.”

Ezran grinned back. “I have something to work on while you’re getting all clean. I’ll give it to you after you’re done.”

Runaan nodded silently and began to tug his boots off one-handed. It took more effort than he wanted to admit. Bait swam happily in the bathing pool, warming it with his sunny glow, while Ezran set a pair of fluffy white towels beside the pool. Then Ezran rolled a low half-barrel over as well and scooped it full of water for Bait. Runaan pulled his last remaining hair cuff from the bottom of his braid and let his eyes play across it, getting lost in happier memories.

Ezran tested the bathing pool and nodded judiciously. Bait scrambled into his waiting barrel and splashed happily, giving off soft croaks and a deep golden radiance. Then Ezran noticed Runaan’s hair cuff. “That’s special to you, isn’t it?”

Runaan’s eyes lingered on the swirls delicately hammered into the metal cylinder. He could picture the hands that had formed it, as clearly as if they were in front of him right now. His shoulders sagged with the heaviness of missing his beloved tinker.

Ezran picked up on his mood. “Okay, you don’t need to talk about it. I’ll be back when you’re all done.” Ezran headed out of the room.

Runaan undid his braid and stripped down, sliding onto the stone bench that ringed the pool with a stifled groan of pleasure. The heat that Bait had infused into the bath immediately began soothing his stiff, sore body. It hurt, almost too much, and Runaan winced as the water reached his shoulders. The heat probably wasn’t good for his bound arm, but the rest of him was in a Moonshadow kind of heaven. Runaan leaned his head against the rim of the pool, and his eyes slid shut. “Ahh…”

Bait croaked inquiringly from inside his half barrel. Runaan looked over and saw steam rising from it. He grinned. “Don’t cook yourself, Bait.”

Bait growled dismissively. He hooked one clawed foot over the barrel’s edge just long enough to give Runaan a judgy side-eye before disappearing back into his steaming water.

“You’re right. I should thank you for this. It feels amazing.”

A grunt of acknowledgment rose from the barrel. Runaan sat in his toasty pool, soaking up the heat like he’d soaked up the moonlight, feeling his chest push the water back with every deep, heaving breath, feeling more alive than he had in far too long. Then he held his breath and dropped his face into the water.

Death. Life. The thinnest of margins separated them. The surface of the water, its tension, clung to Runaan’s cheeks as he lifted himself free and sucked in a deep breath again.

The momentary meditation on death centered his focus again. He was alive, miraculously, and free. And he had work to do. With the son of the king he’d taken. The child of the man he’d killed.

_Appearances are everything._

With slow, careful deliberation, Runaan rubbed the washing sand through his hair and across his skin. Its powdery softness gently scrubbed him clean of the dungeon and left him bright and tingly again. He found tender spots along his jaw and under one eye—gifts from Soren—and a hefty bruise on the front of his right shoulder. His right knee was swollen and torn, inside and out, and the heat of the water made it stiffen. And something wasn’t right with his insides, though it didn’t hurt to breathe like it used to. But he _was_ still breathing. And everything else seemed to be working like it should.

_I am not dead after all. _

Runaan reached for one of the two towels Ezran had left and dried off. After wrapping it around his waist, he twisted the other one around his hair and tucked its tip in at the nape of his neck. Then he eyed his torn and dirty trousers. Gave Bait’s steaming barrel a speculative glance.

Bait grumped at him in suspicion.

Runaan grinned winningly.

When Ezran came in a few minutes later, he found Bait swimming in the big warm pool. Runaan was sitting on a stool in the patch of moonlight and washing his trousers in Bait’s steaming barrel. “You two seem to have done some negotiating without me.”

Runaan looked up with a small smile and spotted two shirts in Ezran’s hands. One of them was his own. The green shirt he’d worn the night of the full Moon. His hands paused in the hot water, his smile fled, his eyes questioning.

Ezran took a breath and approached. “This one is yours. I found it in a box in the dungeon, and I washed it while you were sleeping. I was patching it up just now, see?” He turned the soft green shirt so Runaan could see the uneven stitching he had just done, closing the large slice that had come so very close to drawing blood across Runaan’s chest that night.

Discomfort flooded Runaan at the reminder. His eyes flicked to the white shirt in Ezran’s other hand.

“This one was my dad’s.”

King Harrow had worn a black shirt under his armor the night he fell. This shirt, white with parallel neck lacings, was softer, more casual, yet still regal. Not a shirt for battle. A shirt for leading, though.

“I figured I’d let you choose,” Ezran finished. He held out the shirts. One white, one green. One for the king, one for the assassin. One for the victim, one for his killer. One for Ezran’s father, one for Rayla’s guardian.

_Who am I?_

The look on Runaan’s face must’ve been truly stricken, because Ezran pulled back and looked at him with worry. “I just thought, you know, you’d be more comfortable…”

“You were very kind to think of this, Ezran. But I don’t deserve your father’s shirt.”

“It’s just a shirt.”

“No. It’s not.” Runaan held out a wet hand toward his own green shirt. “I know my place. I’d never try to take another’s.”

That answer didn’t seem to soothe Ezran’s concerns, but he handed over the green shirt readily enough. Runaan wondered if he’d failed some kind of test.

Ezran managed to coax Bait out of the pool long enough to dry Runaan’s trousers with some toasty heat. Then he said, “I have one more thing. I’ll get it from down the hall while you get dressed,” Ezran said.

When the little king returned a few minutes later, Runaan was comfortably dressed again. He sat with moonlight pouring over his hair, watching Bait swim in bubbly circles in the bathing pool. The assassin’s hair was loose and damp, and he cradled his damaged arm around his waist, but his eyes were bright, and he was pretty pleased that he’d managed to get both his boots on by himself. His good hand played with his lone remaining hair cuff, turning it slowly in his fingers.

Ezran held out a small platter. “You like cheese? And I got apples, too.”

Runaan smiled at the offering. “You’re quite the thief, Ezran.”

“Hey, it’s come in really handy recently.”

Runaan took a cheese cube and chewed thoughtfully. “This isn’t bad at all.”

“I’ll be sure to thank our cows later.” Ezran set the platter down beside Runaan. “I brought that gel for your horn again. And I also brought you these.” He reached into his pocket and then opened his hand for Runaan to see.

Two gleaming hair cuffs rested on his palm.

Runaan’s breath caught.

Ezran tipped them onto Runaan’s eager hand, where they joined the first one. “They _are_ special to you.”

“A little piece of home.” Runaan’s voice was velvet.

“You want this gel on the same spots as last time?” Ezran offered.

“Just my horn.”

“Oh. Did the water help your arm feel better?” Ezran asked hopefully.

It had not, but there was no reason to tell the little king so. The pain from the binding ribbon kept Runaan focused. “I’ll be fine, don’t worry.”

Ezran eyed Runaan’s purpling arm as he covered Runaan’s broken horn with numbing gel. Then his eyes wandered to all that long white hair. With it down and loose, Ezran could see where Viren had snipped a piece off. “You want some help with your hair?”

Runaan’s eyes never left the hair cuffs in his hand. “You don’t need to do that. I'll just tie it in a quick knot.”

“Hey. Dignity, remember?”

Runaan’s hand closed around the hair cuffs. His breathing constricted, but he forced a deep breath through the tension. Silently, he nodded, not trusting himself to speak.

“Okay. You’ll have to tell me what to do. I’m only good with my own hair. And by ‘good,’ I mean I can convince it to behave about half the time.”

Runaan reached up and gathered the hair for his right side tail. “Start by separating this much on the left side. The rest will be for the braid and the ponytail.”

Ezran’s warm, dark fingers easily complied, and then Runaan guided him through the steps for braiding and binding his hair back. The hardest part was how incredibly long Runaan’s hair was. Ezran literally got his fingers tangled up in the braid and had to start over. Twice.

“I’m sorry,” he muttered as he combed out the tangles with his fingers.

“You’re not hurting me, Ezran. And we have no reason to hurry.” Runaan felt an easy smile cross his lips. “Rayla loved to play with my hair when she was young. But she’d get tangled in it from time to time as well. It’s my own fault, really, wearing it this long.”

Ezran’s soft giggle set Runaan at ease. Having a human stand directly behind him, in his blind spot, hadn’t been a comfortable choice, but circumstances being what they were, Runaan found that he didn’t mind. Nor did he feel threatened.

_Which could just be my soft heart acting up after that nice long soak, but here we are._

He sighed, feeling more relaxed than he had in weeks_. Here we are._

Ezran settled the three silvery hair cuffs into Runaan’s hair as best he could. “How’s that?”

Runaan felt each one, adjusting them minutely. “Perfect. You’ve been more than generous, Ezran.”

Ezran stepped around to the front and gave Runaan a critical once-over before he nodded approval. “I think that’s as good as we’re going to get.”

Runaan managed not to be offended. With food in his belly and the muck of the dungeon off his skin, he found it easier than usual. “Then I’m ready when you are.”

“Come on, Bait,” Ezran said. “Time to get out. We’ll need your trusty light for this next part.”

With a reluctant growl, Bait slithered out of the pool, scrabbling with one back foot for traction on the pool’s stone lip.

Ezran drew himself up straight and offered Runaan a formal nod. “If you’ll follow me, Runaan of the Moonshadow Elves, we will begin our negotiations.”

Runaan nodded back seriously. “After you, King Ezran.”


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ezran begins to negotiate with Runaan. The assassin is not as prepared as he anticipated.

Bait settled in atop the barrel with a soft grumble and lit Ezran’s hideaway with his bright glow. His light played across Ezran’s thick hair, winked in his wide, determined eyes. It danced through Runaan’s hair, softening its moonlight with sun, but it found no home in the assassin’s gaze, hooded as it was.

Runaan sat on a low box opposite Ezran’s taller barrel. Their eyes were perfectly even, and they stared intently at each other. The time for being soft had passed. Ezran was the king of Katolis, and Runaan represented Xadia. The future of everything rode on the outcome of their negotiations.

Ezran lifted his chin. His face was set more seriously than Runaan had ever seen. “I want this war to stop,” he began. “I don’t want any more of my people to die. And I’m sure you don’t want yours to die, either.”

A flicker of hard cynicism darted across Runaan’s face, narrowing his eyes. “I’ve lost too many lives recently.”

“Good. Then we agree.”

“We don’t. Not really.”

Ezran paused and steadied himself. He really was too young to be negotiating with the likes of Runaan. The assassin was still debating the various endgames he’d calculated during his rejuvenating time in the abandoned bath house. Any one of them would guide Ezran to a different perspective that Runaan could manipulate. It was simply a matter of which one came most easily.

“Then explain the difference to me,” Ezran invited.

Runaan took a slow, steady breath. His eyes studied Ezran. _Do I bend him? Or shatter him_? _Let’s find out._ “You say you want peace, Ezran. But you stock your arsenal by killing and poaching magical creatures. Elves and dragons, too. We are not just your enemy. We are your _fuel_. This war cannot end until dark magic is destroyed. Xadia is fighting to _survive_. Until you understand our perspective, you will see no need to stop what you’re doing.”

“_Xadia_ is fighting to survive?” Ezran’s eyebrows were incredulous. “Do you even _know_ the history of the human race?”

Runaan let out a confident snort. “Of course I do. When you were in dire need, you turned to dark magic instead of literally any other option. You were impatient and greedy.”

“We were _dying_, Runaan!”

Runaan’s turquoise eyes flared hard. “And now, _so are we_.”

The pair stared hotly at each other, mouths pressed flat, for a long moment. Bait glanced worriedly from Runaan to Ezran.

Ezran broke his poise first. “Are all your negotiations this intense? Because I’m kind of feeling like it’s time for a snack break.”

Runaan blinked in surprise.

Ezran reached behind a tapestry draped over an empty picture frame and pulled out a platter of jelly tarts. He offered one to Bait first, and the glow toad snatched it with a quick curl of his long tongue. Then he offered the stacked pastries to Runaan. “Jelly tart? They’re fit for a king.” Ezran’s smile was exceptionally winning.

_Oh. He’s very good_. Runaan took a jelly tart and nibbled one pointy end.

Ezran helped himself to one, set the platter beside him, and took a second tart in his other hand. “Now. Where were we?”

Runaan pursed his lips with faint amusement. “I believe we were both trying to out-die each other.”

“Yeah, that’s right.” Ezran took a big bite of his jelly tart. “So you agree that humans have died.”

Runaan dipped his horn. “And you agree that elves and dragons have died.”

“And that there are still enough of both left alive that it’s worth trying to figure out how to keep them that way,” Ezran added.

Runaan’s brows drew together. “That’s really not my area, Ezran. My business is literally the opposite of that.”

Ezran gave him a patient look that he must’ve inherited straight from his father. It gave Runaan a chill shiver. “I need you to stretch a little, Runaan. Let’s pretend we’re talking about Rayla.”

Runaan glanced down at his jelly tart for a moment before nodding. He’d stretched quite a bit trying to keep her alive once his mission went pear-shaped. Because he wanted her to have a future. A safe, secure future. He’d rarely contemplated one without war in it, though. But for Rayla… “Very well. For Rayla.”

Ezran grinned broadly, as if Runaan had given him an unintended boon, and polished off his first jelly tart.

Something squirmed deep in Runaan’s belly_. Here I think I know how to play this child-king, and he keeps using moves I’ve never seen before._

“So, you want to save Rayla. And I want to save Callum. There. That’s a fair way to negotiate, isn’t it?” Ezran asked.

Runaan nodded silently, wary, seeking the strings that guided Ezran’s thoughts.

“I’d give up a lot to save Callum. Would you say the same about Rayla?”

Such an innocent question. “I already have.”

Bait grumbled softly. Runaan looked over at him, then back at Ezran. “Every day I didn’t hear her voice in the dungeon was a day I was winning against Viren.”

Ezran gasped softly. “Because the egg was getting away.”

Runaan nodded. Twiddled his jelly tart. “And so was Rayla.”

Ezran glanced at the glow toad, then back at Runaan. “You were bait. You dangled yourself in front of Lord Viren so Callum and Rayla could get away with the egg. Didn’t you?”

Runaan lifted his chin and offered Ezran a mirthless smile before taking another bite of his jelly tart. “I did. And it worked. I understand sacrifice, Ezran. From both sides.”

Ezran paused with a jelly tart halfway to his mouth. He didn’t move for a long moment.

Runaan lifted a white eyebrow.

When Ezran finally moved, he lowered his jelly tart without taking a bite. “There are more than two sides, Runaan.”

Runaan’s other white brow rose. A war with three sides? “And who is fighting on the third side, Ezran?”

“No one. No one is fighting on the third side, Runaan. They’re just getting hurt. _I’m_ just getting hurt.”

Those brows dropped protectively, shielding Runaan’s feelings from showing. “I…”

“You’re an old assassin. You’ve lived through a lot of missions. Which means you’ve killed a lot of people, doesn’t it?”

_Old. Hardly._ “I’ve had many successful missions, yes.”

“No. Say it.” Ezran’s stubborn pout demanded to be taken seriously.

Runaan let out a carefully controlled sigh. “I’ve taken many lives for Xadia, Ezran.”

Ezran’s blue eyes flashed. “Say it _right_.”

Runaan’s mouth fell open in surprise. “I… I’ve killed a lot of people. Humans. Is that what you want me to say?”

Ezran’s eyebrows crowded together. “Yeah, it is. Because you know what else you’ve done?”

Runaan’s smile was quick and wry. “You’re not interested in the benefits of my duty, I take it.”

“I am not.” Ezran’s tone abruptly softened, and he leaned forward a little, gesturing with his jelly tart. “But please, stay with me here. I need you to understand something.”

With a patience honed from years of raising an exasperatingly inquisitive elfling, Runaan held Ezran’s gaze for a bit and then nodded tiredly. Ezran could wear himself out on Runaan for a while, and then the assassin would make his final point. There was no need to be rude to his rescuer. “What is it you wish me to understand, Ezran?”

Ezran drew himself up. His lower lip wobbled for a fraction of a second. But his eyes were clear and strong. “That every person you’ve killed leaves an empty space, and that emptiness makes everyone who knew them sad. And angry. At you.”

“I understand that—”

But Ezran was already shaking his head. He stood up and stepped into the middle space between them. “I don’t think you do. You go back home to Xadia. You never see us cry. You never hear us begging the world for just one more day, or a chance to say goodbye, do you?” Ezran’s voice broke.

Runaan’s eyes widened, and despite his best intentions, a soft spot formed in his chest, filled with a low ache. “I—”

“Because that’s what I’ve been doing. And I’ve been hiding it from you. Trying to be brave. But maybe it’s time you see it.” Tears leaked from Ezran’s eyes, and he took in a shaky breath. His voice constricted as he began to cry, but he managed to say, “Maybe it’s time you see the third side of this war. Because we’re everywhere, don’t you see? Elven families who lose their loved ones feel exactly the same as human families, don’t they? _We’re all on the same side_.”

Ezran stood there and cried. Didn’t hide his face in his hands. Stared right into Runaan’s eyes. Into his soul. And cried for the loss of his father the king. His sobs rolled around the little room. Bait turned gray, and the light went Moonshadow-hued.

That caught Runaan off guard. The whole room—his whole world—dipped into a sorrow colored by his own people. The warmth was stolen from Ezran’s skin. His eyes faded to silvery-gray. With Bait’s golden hues gone, Ezran seemed to be dying, too.

Runaan reached out instinctively. “Ezran, I’m sorry.”

Ezran swiped at his nose with the back of one hand. “Are you? Are you sorry? The real kind of sorry, not just sorry you got caught?”

That soft spot in Runaan’s chest swirled wider, like the eye of a storm, spinning tightly around his heart. It hurt, it pulled. At places, old scars, Runaan had tried to ignore for years. For decades. “I am. I truly am.”

Ezran snuffled in a deep breath. Tears still poured down his cheeks. He swiped at them too. “Would you take it back?”

The hurricane in Runaan’s chest strengthened. _I had a duty._

Ezran spoke in a damp whisper. “Would you take it back… for Rayla?”

The howling in Runaan’s ears quieted. The eye of the storm was all around him. Perfect, eternal silence. In which he had nowhere to hide. In which his inner voice echoed like thunder. _I already made that choice. Maybe… Maybe it was the wrong one. Maybe I should’ve run with her to the border._

Runaan’s gaze dropped. He felt his eyes burn, and he forgot how to breathe. A tiny death full of pain—lungs straining, eyes watering, heart wrenching. Regret stealthed up behind him and stabbed him in the back.

He gasped hard, full of life and pain—things Harrow would never feel again—and met Ezran’s eyes again. No amount of clenching his jaw could make him hard enough to keep that hot, fresh tear from slipping over his cheek.

“Yes.”


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ezran's invested a lot of time in softening Runaan up.
> 
> Then he delivers a surgical strike that Runaan doesn't see coming.

Ezran buried his face in his hands and cried harder. His broken sobs shook his soft little shoulders, and on the barrel beside him, Bait darkened even further.

Runaan glanced at the glow toad with mild alarm, but Bait wouldn’t meet his eyes. The assassin looked back at the little king, who stood before him, weeping hard. Runaan had rarely felt more useless in his life. “Ezran…” he whispered. His fingers stretched out, but he hesitated. He knew full well what his hands had done. What was he thinking, offering comfort with them now?

Ezran slid to his knees as his body shook with sobs, and Runaan couldn’t hold back any longer. He reached out and rested his good hand Ezran’s shoulder.

The little king didn’t shrug it off. Tentatively, Runaan scooted closer. His head still rang with the echoing silence of the eye of the storm. The hard edges of the hurricane had flown wide, too wide to bring back. Only the softness and the silence remained. “Ezran, I’m so sorry.”

Ezran leaned into his supportive hand. Runaan sat next to him, facing the opposite way, and slid his good arm around Ezran’s shoulders. Ezran leaned against Runaan’s shoulder, and his sobs vibrated through Runaan’s chest. Their intensity shook him. Moonshadows cried quietly. Silently, if they could. This wild, chaotic sorrow was overwhelming. Contagious. Runaan felt the storm within him tighten again, and it _hurt_. His whole chest ached. He closed his eyes, and tears slipped out from beneath his lashes. “I’m so sorry,” he repeated.

Eventually, Ezran cried himself out and found enough quiet breath to speak. He sat back on his heels, mirroring Runaan, and looked up into his face. “You took my dad away.”

Runaan answered him promptly, though his eyes were wet, too. “I did.”

Ezran spoke between big heaving breaths. “You can’t undo something like that. You took someone out of the world forever. _You_ decided that you deserved that responsibility. That’s what you said. You think you d-deserve…” Ezran trailed off into shuddering sobs again.

Runaan finished for him. “To choose between life and death for others. Yes.”

“You call it mercy when you don’t kill _everyone_. But _someone_ still dies, every time.” Ezran spoke again, but some of his words were lost in a sob. “…magic.”

“What?”

Bait grumped a warning at Runaan in the dim gray light, but it was too late. Ezran repeated himself.

“I said, Runaan, _you’re Xadia’s dark magic_.”

Runaan’s disbelieving whisper was strangled with horror. “W-What?”

Ezran stared up at him with wet, clear eyes. “I know how dark magic works. You said it yourself. Magical creatures, even your own people, have to die, and their death turns into power. That’s exactly what you do to humans.”

Runaan’s entire spine had gone ice cold. He couldn’t feel his fingertips. Couldn’t tear his horrified gaze from Ezran’s eyes. “No, that’s not—”

But Ezran was done showing mercy. His eyes locked onto Runaan’s face, and his expression set firmly. “Yes. It _is_. Xadia controls humans by killing our leaders, our traders, our soldiers. Their deaths turn into more power for Xadia. It’s the _same thing_.”

Anger, confusion, and a hard knot of denial warred for control in Runaan’s mind. “It’s not the same at—”

Ezran was relentless. “You don’t ask their permission. You just kill them. Isn’t that what happens to magical creatures?”

Runaan found a stable thought and clung to it. “Magical creatures don’t do anything to deserve death, Ezran.”

Ezran’s eyes glinted. “No one _deserves_ death, Runaan. That’s not a thing.”

Runaan sighed, trying to regain his patience and equilibrium. This conversation had been an absolute maelstrom so far. “Death can be earned. If someone has made so many terrible choices that the world is better without them—”

“_No_. That’s _not a thing_. No one can decide that for someone else!”

Runaan’s jaw tightened. “Someone has to make the hard call, Ezran.”

Ezran’s eyes sparked silver in Bait’s low gray light. “Runaan, _it’s a shortcut_!”

Runaan froze, speared in place by Ezran’s words. “Shorcut” was the kindest way Xadians described dark magic to each other. And now the term had been aimed at _him_. He’d been accused of embodying the very thing he hated most in the world. He couldn’t even shiver, his mind was so shaken.

Ezran plowed forward. “You’ve never even _tried_ talking to us. You just sneak over the border and kill us. How are we supposed to learn to get along when neither side is willing to slow down and listen?”

But Runaan’s mind had tangled again on Ezran’s shocking, horrific accusation. “I… I am _not_ Xadia’s dark _magic_…”

Ezran swiped his hands across his eyes. He sniffled hard, took a deep breath, and looked up at Runaan. “_You_ said this war can’t end until we destroy dark magic. Remember?”

All those doors of possibility slammed wide open once again, and their echoes bruised Runaan’s heart. _Ezran, no_… “Yes.” The hurricane roared in his ears. Stole his breath. He could barely feel the floor beneath him.

The little king flexed his shoulders and lifted his chin. “Do you know what I’m asking you to give up, then? For peace?”

The cold, dark walls of the dungeon closed around Runaan’s mind once more. “You need me to die. Kill death, and the dying stops.”

Bait croaked softly. Runaan shot him an uncertain glance.

Ezran blinked and drew back. “What? No. Runaan, you’re still thinking in shortcuts. And you’re not the only assassin in Xadia, are you?”

“I… no, I’m not.” Runaan sucked in a hesitant, confused breath. “You don’t want me dead, then?”

Ezran’s voice was gentle, and his tone was encouraging. He shifted so mercurially, so smoothly. Was it because he felt comfortable around Runaan? Or was there something else going on? “I promised I wouldn’t kill you, didn’t I?” Ezran said. “Besides, Rayla would be really sad if you died. I know she would.”

Runaan’s heart spasmed. Rayla wasn’t the only one who would mourn him_._ “My duty, then. To my people. You want me to give it up.”

Ezran laid a tentative hand on Runaan’s good arm. “Just think about it for now.”

_But who am I, if I’m not Runaan the assassin?_ Runaan’s mind flashed back to the two shirts Ezran had offered him a short time ago. His good hand pressed hard against his abdomen, against his own green shirt, and his fingers dug into the soft material.

“I was the third side, wasn’t I? In the dungeon.” Runaan’s voice was soft. “You offered me your father’s shirt and my own. But my lack of a shirt meant that I was the third side. The side that was hurt.”

Ezran reached for the nearby platter of jelly tarts and took one. “People can be on more than one side. That’s probably why this war has gone on as long as it has. We keep shifting from the hurt side to the fighting sides.”

Runaan offered him a short nod. “That’s very deep, Ezran. But I think your metaphor is falling apart. There were only the three choices. A king’s shirt, an assassin’s shirt, or no shirt at all. The only way to win…”

Ezran managed a brief grin. “Is not to have skin in the game.”

Runaan’s snort was quiet but genuinely amused.

Ezran wasn’t finished, though. “There _was_ something else in that room. A fourth option. And you picked it first. You threw yourself at it. You needed it like you need air.”

Runaan’s arcanum pinged hard deep inside his mind. “Moonlight.” His skin shivered with the memory of that bright, blessed glow drenching him, soaking into his soul.

Life.

_Not_ death.

Runaan had walked into that bathing chamber and hurled himself at a chance to live. Had sat in its glow at every opportunity.

_I want to live. More than I want to kill. Can I… Can I truly decide this? Here, now? Can I change my life this sharply?_ A thousand questions swirled in the winds of his hurricane. _What will the Dragon Queen say? Will Ethari despise me? Will it do any good at all in the long run? Am I a coward?_

He thought of Rayla. His sweet little shadow, copying his every move.

Then a dark vision of Rayla slumped in the chains of Viren’s dungeon slammed its way into Runaan’s mind. Her horn broken, her knee torn, her eyes raging, spitting denials and curses at the dark mage. Starving for moonlight. Her mission of revenge failed.

Viren would kill her too, as he’d planned to kill Runaan. Eventually.

_Ezran is right. It will never end. Unless we choose to end it._

“What are you thinking?” Ezran asked softly.

Runaan studied his hands. Slender, callused fingers, sturdy palms. Strong and skilled with blade and bow alike. That was nearly all they knew. His eyes prickled hot again, and his chest tightened. “I think your father would be proud of you, Ezran.”

“For what?” he asked quietly.

Runaan’s smile wavered and vanished. He blinked hard, and more tears fell. Mourning himself wasn’t something he’d ever expected to do. He had no idea how to proceed. He managed a deep breath and said, “For raising you so well that you’ve out-Moonshadowed this Moonshadow. I see now that your kindness to me has been both tactical _and_ genuine. You are young and soft. But you can _see_. And somehow, you can make _me_ see. You have made me see this war personally, as it affects you. Me. Even Rayla. That’s something I’ve worked very hard to avoid. But you’re right here in front of me, and I cannot look away. I see you, Ezran. I see… what I’ve done to you. And I’m s—” Runaan choked up. “I’m sorry,” he finished in a ragged whisper. He bowed his head, and his tears fell hot onto the stone floor.

Ezran turned away. Runaan was sure the boy would leave him to his messy regrets, but Ezran’s hands were back in view, blurred by Runaan’s tears, in just a few moments.

The little king’s voice was gentle, determined. “I accept your apology, Runaan. But we’re not done negotiating yet. Which do you want first?”

Runaan blinked hard. One of Ezran’s hands held a handkerchief, the other a jelly tart.

Bait’s glow finally brightened back to a soft yellow light.

Through his tears, Runaan let out a laugh.


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which negotiations conclude, and Runaan and Ezran reach an accord.

When Runaan had made himself a bit more presentable and downed a whole jelly tart, Ezran sat back on his barrel and studied him. Runaan followed suit, repositioning himself on his low box, feeling an odd calm following the release of his hurricane-force distress.

_The calm after the storm is more powerful then the one before it._

Runaan pressed a hand against his chest. Something had broken open deep inside him. Something old and desiccated. The mummified shell of who he had become. He could breathe easier, but in a strange way, as if he’d discovered a third lung after all these years.

“No one ever told me negotiations were this hard,” Ezran offered. He fiddled with yet another jelly tart, not seeming interested in eating it just yet. “Do you think the other kings and queens cry when they negotiate, too? Do you even have kings and queens in Xadia?”

A wry smile flickered across Runaan’s face. “We do. Perhaps all their crying breaks may be why their negotiations take so long.”

“It’s shorter this way, isn’t it?” Ezran asked, as if encouraging himself. “And I think it helps. Do you think it helps?”

“Seeing each other cry?” Runaan made a thoughtful pout. “It’s very effective. I’ll give you that. But I think it only works when both parties are willing to be this vulnerable with each other. Not everyone will be.”

Bait let out a soft grump, and Runaan gave him a nod.

“Any other time in my life, I wouldn’t have been willing, either,” Runaan added. “You found me during a perfect storm of disasters. You could not have engineered such a moment so well with a years’ worth of preparation. I applaud your opportunism, Ezran.”

Ezran grinned shyly and kicked his heels against his barrel. “Yeah, I suppose. But it just felt… right. Even after what you did. You didn’t deserve to stay in that dungeon. And I really do need your help, for Callum’s sake. And you need mine, for Rayla’s.”

Runaan sat up straighter. “You’ve asked for something nearly unthinkable from me, Ezran. For me to give up my entire identity within my culture. I’m curious what you intend to offer me that could possibly match that.”

Instead of scrambling, or evading, or even answering directly, Ezran half-lidded his eyes with a lopsided smile. “Offer _you_? But you represent _Xadia_.”

Runaan dipped his horn. “I see how you’re working now, Ezran. You wish to negotiate with Xadia—eventually—but first you need to negotiate with _me_. You’re testing me to see if I’m trustworthy and honorable. Because I killed your father. Because you need to be certain of me. If you _can_ be certain of me, then you can trust me to carry your messages to Xadia without distorting them.” He studied the little king patiently. He hadn’t thought this clearly in nearly two weeks. Perhaps his admission, his breakthrough, his tears, had helped clear out more cobwebs than he thought. “Have I left anything out?”

Ezran was far from embarrassed at being figured out, though. His eyes lit up. “So you understand. That’s good! I do want to trust you. I want to work with you. You’re all I have, Runaan. I’m alone and hiding in my own castle. And until I know I can really trust the one person who’s definitely _not_ trying to kill me, I can’t do much of anything. So for now, it’s just you and me.”

Bait growled.

“And Bait,” Ezran added with a chuckle. “Always you, Bait.” He held out another jelly tart, and Bait lassoed it with his tongue, inhaling it whole.

“Then give me your offer. Surely you’ve thought of one,” Runaan prompted. “Or do I get to ask?”

Ezran picked up another jelly tart and gestured to Runaan with it. “Ooh, go ahead. I wanna know what you really want. I really do.”

Runaan didn’t hesitate. “Destroy dark magic.”

Ezran blinked, open-mouthed. “Uhh… I don’t know how to do that. Do you?”

Runaan sighed. “I do not.”

“That makes it pretty hard to agree to. Then how about this counter-offer?” Ezran said brightly. “When I’m properly crowned King of Katolis, the first thing I’ll do will be to get rid of the position of High Mage and forbid the use of dark magic. I don’t know how to destroy dark magic. But I can make sure it doesn’t happen inside my borders.”

Runaan blinked. The little king couldn’t be serious. The tactician in him drove him to speak. “But being without magic will leave you vulnerable to your neighbors’ dark mages.”

Ezran nodded thoughtfully. “It might. But we’re all at peace right now.”

“Easier to attack someone who can’t defend, though.”

Ezran chuckled. “Runaan, are you worried for me? That’s… sweet.”

Runaan drew back, afraid he’d shown his hand too plainly. “I’m just not sure you’ve thought this through.”

“Well,” Ezran said with a grin, “if I _had_ thought it through, what do you think I might have in mind to keep my borders safe from dark magic?”

Runaan stared at the little king for a long moment. The way Ezran wriggled, Runaan knew he had an idea. If Runaan could figure it out, would Ezran really consider divesting Lord Viren of his position?

Of course he would. Viren wanted him dead. Taking out such a threat was only practical. But it was a very dangerous move. How to get Ezran to take it safely?

“You need magic to defend you against magic. There’s no way around that,” Runaan began. “And Xadia is full of magic. Perhaps you need Moonguard stationed along your borders.”

Ezran’s grin was bright. “You’re really good at this! Is there really a Moonguard?”

“Maybe.”

“And I can have some?”

“Maybe so. But, Ezran. You cannot just kick Viren out. He’s very powerful, and he will not scruple to strike as hard and as fast as he needs to. He is a formidable opponent. Understand, I’m speaking from experience. You need a plan. And that plan will need to involve Xadian support.”

Ezran squinted. “I don’t think so. A bunch of Moonshadows invading Katolis to mess with another high ranking official isn’t going to make my people feel very safe.”

Runaan frowned. “All right, I concede that point.” He took a deep breath and waded further in. “How about one Moonshadow who’s already here in Katolis?”

Ezran’s eyebrows shot up. “You… you wanna try to capture Lord Viren by yourself?”

“I’ll need a few more days to heal. But with your knowledge of this castle, I’m willing to try.”

“Just capture him, though. Don’t kill him.”

Runaan stared silently.

“It’s a good chance to practice not being an assassin,” Ezran added.

_Perhaps it is._ Runaan’s well-honed mind began running options. The dark mage’s routine would need study. Blind spots, access points, ingress and egress routes, choke points. And of course, somewhere to stash him, if Runaan wasn’t going to leave his body on the floor.

“He’ll need to be separated from his staff,” Runaan said aloud. “And he can’t be left with any resources. His belt pouches must be confiscated, and he’ll need to be thoroughly searched. We can’t let him anywhere near any living things of any kind.”

Ezran nodded, impressed. “It’s good that you can think like that. I can’t. and I like that you said ‘we’. Are we really in this together, then?”

Runaan studied him quietly. “There’s something you’re not telling me. What is it?”

Ezran’s brows drew together and he looked down. “I guess your perceptiveness goes both ways, huh.” He sighed. “It’s Callum.”

“What about him?”

“He wants to be a mage.”

Runaan twitched back, alarmed. What had Rayla gotten herself into? “Has he begun to study with Viren and his daughter?”

“No, nothing like that. But the night of the full moon, he ended up taking Claudia’s primal stone. He used it to cast a windbreath spell and everything! He took it with him to Xadia. I hope he can use it to help keep Rayla and the egg safe.”

Runaan needed a few moments to absorb this new information. The notion of a human finding a primal stone—and successfully _using_ it—was fancifully bizarre. “If he only uses the primal stone, I suppose it’s possible that the Dragon Queen may find him a Skywing tutor. But a human mage, Ezran… Your brother may not be allowed to practice until he’s proven himself trustworthy. And that may take years.”

Ezran’s shoulders slumped. “I understand. I love Callum. And I’d love to let him practice magic, if I can. But I’d rather have Callum be alive without magic than dead in the war because he used it. He’s all I have left of my family. I’d do anything to keep him safe. If it brings peace with Xadia, I’ll offer up my brother’s magic as well as all the dark magic in Katolis, in exchange for primal magic protection from your Moonguard.”

Runaan nodded silently. Ezran could’ve lied about Callum’s interest in magic. But he hadn’t. His vulnerability was a show of trust, and Runaan felt honor-bound to acknowledge it. “You’ve shown wisdom in your perception and your tactical use of your own weaknesses, Ezran. You’ll make a decent king, with the right guidance.”

Ezran grinned and shared a sly look with Bait, who grumbled under his breath. “Oh good. I was about to ask you anyway.”

Runaan’s eyebrows shot up. “Ask me what?”

Ezran’s smile was smooth. “Come on. You know what has to come next, Runaan. Neither of us are getting out of this unless we work together, right? And before we can take on Lord Viren, we have to be sure of each other. How do Moonshadows be sure of each other?”

Runaan’s eyes dropped to his binding ribbon. Though it had washed clean in the bathing room, its edges were darkening. It had finally begun to cut into his flesh. “Oaths.”

Ezran’s eyes lingered on Runaan’s binding, too. “Will you give me one?”

Runaan eyed him speculatively. “What would you ask me to swear, Ezran?”

Ezran shifted on his barrel and shared another long look with Bait. When he met Runaan’s eyes again, he said, “Just give me the strongest oath you’re willing to make, and I’ll take it.”

Runaan’s eyebrows climbed again. _Such a subtle tactic, letting me bind myself however I choose. Easier than the Dragon Queen’s demands._

_He offered me his brother’s dreams. And he’s asked for my status. In the name of peace, and for Rayla’s future, can I truly refuse him? In this moment, is there anything I can offer him besides myself? Kill death, and the dying stops. _

Runaan leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees, holding Ezran’s gaze. His heart shivered, and his vision blurred. Runaan blinked hard. _This is the moment I choose my own destiny. The moment when I stop letting others choose for me._ _Either I bend, or I shatter._

“I took your father’s life. But you and I have spared each other’s lives, as well. Life and death are both part of our bond. If you are to trust me, Ezran, I need to decide to focus on life, instead of death. Taking more lives—even Viren’s—would tarnish our bond further than it already is. So I give you my most solemn oath, Ezran, uncrowned king of Katolis, that I will set aside my chosen path as an assassin. I will not kill again. Not for Xadia, or for myself, or for you. And so that you may trust me, I also give you my oath to stay by your side until you can claim your crown. Whatever skills I still possess, they are yours until then. I will keep you alive and safe to the best of my ability.” Runaan rolled his left shoulder, feeling the biting burn of his binding. He had no hope that his best abilities would count for much even a few days from now. But if he could capture Viren quickly, perhaps he could rest safely under Ezran’s rule while he healed from losing his arm. “And when you are King of Katolis, when negotiations between you and the Dragon Queen have concluded, and your realm is safe and guarded as agreed, then I will part with you and return home.”

Ezran’s jaw dropped. “Wow. That’s a big oath, Runaan. Are you sure?”

Runaan’s nod was crisp. “I’m sure.”

“But that could take a long time. Weeks, months even. Years. I could be a _teenager_ before we work things out.”

“I have the time.”_ If I’m turning my back on the Dragon Queen, Xadia will not be a safe place for me anytime soon. Peace first. Then home. _His breath caught in a painful spasm at the thought of being separated for so much longer. But there was no other way._ I’m sorry, my love._

“Rayla will miss you, though.” Ezran’s eyes lingered on Runaan’s hair cuffs. “Will anyone else miss you?”

Runaan licked his lips and sighed. “I only know one way to push, Ezran, and that’s at full speed. He’ll understand.”

Ezran’s eyebrows were full of doubt. “If you say so. But thank you for your oath. I really do feel like I can trust you now. And that’s a good thing, because I have something for you.”

“Again? You keep giving me things, Ezran. Like my tinker.” He twiddled a hair cuff with reminiscent fingers.

Ezran’s eyes dropped to the silvery finery, and a slow grin spread across his face. “Then I think you’ll _really_ like this. Wait right there.” He hopped off his barrel and ducked around the pile of hay Runaan had slept on, rummaging behind a few more boxes. A silvery metal curve rose suddenly and winked in Bait’s light, marking Ezran’s progress as he returned.

Runaan’s heart nearly stopped. His ears perked straight, and he lunged to his feet, eyes locked on the gleaming gift Ethari had presented to him in the misty moonlight seven years ago last Winter’s Turn. He never thought he’d see it again.

His hands reached out of their own accord, and Ezran rested the bowblade across Runaan’s palms. Runaan’s fingers squeezed it, reveling in its firm, heavy certainty. His gaze traced the delicate patterning on the blades. The bow handle. The fine string. Ethari's hands had formed every tiny detail of this exquisite weapon. The look in his eyes when he placed it in Runaan’s palms had been electric.

Runaan fell back to sit heavily on his box. He rested the lower tip of the bowblade on the floor, clutched its handle with his good hand, and leaned his forehead against his thumb. His breathing was nowhere near steady. After several calming breaths, he looked up. “Thank you, Ezran.”

Ezran’s smile was warm. “I’m only giving you things that belonged to you. Besides, you’ll need those swords to stay safe when we capture Lord Viren. And you can’t keep your oath to protect me without them.”

Runaan eyed his left arm, swollen and purpling. His hand was nearly useless now. “I’ll have to make do with one sword.”

Ezran’s eyes lingered on the bowblade, though. “Is that what you used?” His voice was small.

Runaan suddenly saw his beloved gift through Ezran’s eyes. His brows bent, and his mouth fell open.

“I guess that’s a yes.” Ezran’s shoulders slumped.

Runaan’s eyes shifted from the gleaming edge of the bowblade to Ezran’s vulnerable expression. “No.”

“Really? Oh. Then—”

“I’m never telling you that.”

“But—”

“No, Ezran.”

Bait let out a dissatisfied growl at Runaan’s firm tone.

Ezran’s voice took on a tone of stubborn fatality. “I could order you to.”

Runaan tipped his remaining horn wryly. “You really couldn’t. I swore not to kill anyone and to keep you safe until you’re crowned king. There was no oath of fealty or obedience in there. I checked.”

Ezran frowned. “Stubborn Moonshadow elf.” But his shoulders relaxed. Runaan knew he hadn’t really wanted to hear the details.

“I hear that rather frequently. Even from other Moonshadows.”

“Then you know you deserve it.”

Runaan gave him a lopsided smile. “That I do.”

Bait grumbled at him.

Ezran sighed. “If it’s okay with you, I’d like to close this part of our negotiations. We’ve reached an accord, and I think we should decide what to do about Lord Viren before we negotiate any further.”

Runaan offered a crisp nod. “That seems fair. He’ll be an excellent bargaining chip with Xadia.”

Ezran’s eyebrows climbed toward his hairline. “Wow, okay. I was just thinking it’ll be easier to keep negotiating if we’re not being hunted.”

Runaan’s expression remained flat. “That too.”

Ezran squinted one dubious eye at Runaan. “Okay, Mister ‘I’m Not Xadia’s Dark Magic.’ For now, let’s take a break and get some rest. And some more food. Sound good?”

Runaan’s belly growled. Bait eyed him warily. The former assassin grinned. “Apparently so.”


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things take a sharp jink to the left, and Runaan's plans for Viren will have to wait.

The light touch of sharp steel jerked Runaan from his hard sleep, and several things happened at once.

Instinct screamed for Runaan to defend himself. Pain flared, dull and sharp, on his left arm. His right hand found a porcelain vase shard and blindly drove it upward. A soft gasp reached his ears.

Runaan’s eyes flew open. His hand jerked to a halt.

Ezran bent over him, eyes radiating purple light, wide at the sight of the shard Runaan had stopped a bare inch from his nose. A matching glow gleamed from a dagger in Ezran’s hand.

Runaan could only stare in horrified fascination. What in the name of the Moon was going on?

And then Ezran’s eyes filled with utter blackness.

“Ezran, no! What have you done?” Runaan jerked upright and clapped his hand atop Ezran’s shoulder, nearly ready to shake him.

“I fixed it, see?” Ezran murmured, even as his head began to droop. “Now you can protec—”

The little king fainted. His glowing dagger clattered to the stone.

On reflex alone, Runaan dropped the porcelain shard and caught Ezran by the front of his tunic before he could hit the floor. He pivoted onto his knees and settled Ezran where he’d just been sleeping on the tapestry-covered hay. “Ezran, you foolish child, what in all the world were you _thinking_? We just talked about— We _literally_ just— _Ghh_.” Runaan felt for Ezran’s pulse and found it thrumming away. But even with his night-loving eyes, the soft glow of his hair provided little light for practical purposes. And there was no way he was using that fiendish dagger for a light source.

“Bait? I could use more light.” No grumpy growl replied. “Bait.” Still no answer.

Runaan’s fingers tightened on Ezran’s shoulder. “He tried to stop you, didn’t he? Where did you put him?” He checked Ezran over a second time, reassuring himself that the boy was going to live for at least the next few minutes. Then he shoved aside the painful sensations coming from his left arm and concentrated on finding Bait. He stood and kicked that dagger out of view, relying on his hearing in the dark. “Bait, can you hear me?”

An upside-down half-barrel scraped across the floor with an awful wooden squeak. Runaan hurried over and pried up one edge with his good fingers. Bait stared up at him in dark gray hues, barely lit by Runaan’s hair.

Runaan scooped him up and strode back to Ezran. “He’s done something terrible, Bait. I need enough light to see what he needs to pull through this, so I can throttle him for being such an utter fool.”

Bait grumped and whimpered as Runaan set him beside Ezran, who hadn’t woken. The glow toad brightened to a pale yellow, and his little clawed foot pressed comfortingly against Ezran’s arm.

Ezran’s eyes were shut, but his face was tight, as if he were in pain or having a nightmare. His little hands were balled into fists. Runaan knelt by his side, his concerned expression highlighted by Bait’s fresh light. “Foolish boy. And here I thought we’d begun to trust each other.” He rested the back of his hand against Ezran’s forehead and found it feverish. “Why do you humans always fling yourself at dark magic—_aah_—”

The pain in Runaan’s arm had climbed up to his shoulder, fiery and twisted and insistent. Runaan gingerly reached for his bicep.

Bait’s grumbly commentary was laden with a shock that mirrored Runaan’s own.

Runaan had become used to barely feeling anything from his left arm except a tight dull pain, so he blinked in surprise when he touched his own arm and found it slick with blood.

And the binding ribbon was _gone_.

_The dagger. Of course._

Ezran’s dark magic dagger had severed Runaan’s promise as if it meant nothing. Runaan bared his teeth. How had he failed to understand Ezran’s true intentions, his desperate action, until this moment? Had the little king been planning this, too, all along?

_Humans are liars…_

The old propaganda rose in his mind, hard and sharp. Just yesterday, Runaan had given Ezran his word to spare lives instead of taking them, and to guard him until he could claim his rightful throne. _And now he does this. To me. To himself._

Bait growled, and Runaan looked down. The glow toad stared up at him angrily with both front feet set protectively atop Ezran’s chest.

Runaan studied Ezran’s face, then his gaze returned to Bait. His hand tightened over the small slice Ezran had given him while cutting his binding free. “You know what he did. Why do you defend him?”

Bait’s big bulging eyes shifted to Ezran’s face too. His grumpy expression softened, and he settled down atop Ezran with a mournful groan.

_Because you love him._

Runaan let out a sigh that was doing its best to stay patient. He reached for the porcelain shard and sliced off a strip of the human-victory tapestry. Using his good hand and his teeth, he managed a decent field dressing around his bleeding arm. Another generous square of tapestry mopped up the blood he’d been losing in drops on the floor. _Every piece of me is a boon to Viren._

With Bait riding his shoulder, Runaan fetched fresh water from the bathing rooms. His newly freed arm throbbed all the way there and all the way back, hot and cold, with tingles and shooting pains. Runaan pushed them into the back of his mind. He sat watch by Ezran’s side, keeping the boy’s fever down as best he could. An inner countdown that had started the moment Ezran had freed him from his chains kept ticking away in the back of his mind, but Runaan knew that his best shot at staying out of Viren’s clutches was with Ezran’s help.

To pass the time and settle his own nerves, Runaan began talking to Bait. “I was nearly ready. It had to be soon, or my arm would have rendered me useless against Viren. And I can feel him looking for me. I don’t know how I know. Maybe it’s my missing horn. But he’s looking, Bait. And eventually he’ll find me. I _was_ nearly ready. But now…”

Bait croaked commiseratingly.

“He _hopes_ I fled the castle and headed for Xadia. He’s searching in case I didn’t. And he’s right to do so, considering what I have planned.”

Bait growled grumpily.

Runaan tipped his remaining horn in Bait’s light. “Don’t you start, toad. I gave Ezran my word and I intend to hold to it. There are a thousand ways _not_ to kill someone when I have a sword in my hand, compared with only a few ways to take a life. I have more options under my oath to Ezran than I did before I swore it. I’m far more concerned over Ezran’s terrible timing—and his plan in general—than I am over whether or not I’ll ‘accidentally’ take Viren’s life.”

Bait studied Runaan’s tapestry-bound bicep. He let out a quiet grunt.

Runaan settled a cold cloth atop Ezran’s forehead and looked at his own injured arm. It still stung and throbbed like a mad thing. But with _life_, not with death. He could already move his fingers better than he had in days. But Ezran was paying a terrible price for that benefit. “I wish he would’ve discussed this with me first.”

Bait gave him a baleful stare.

Runaan pressed his lips into a thin line. “Of _course_ I would’ve said no. That isn’t the point.”

Bait only rolled his big eyes and grumbled.

Runaan sighed in exasperation. “Why must humans _always_ rush to the quickest shortcut? This could kill him, Bait.” Bait opened his mouth to protest, but Runaan spoke first. “I know, I know. Elves and humans haven’t had the best working relationship in the past. I don’t agree with the humans’ historical choices. But I can… understand why they felt it was necessary, I suppose. This, though… We’d just agreed to work together for a common cause. And he _still_ kept this from me.” Runaan closed his eyes and steadied his emotions. Ezran was having far too heavy an influence on them recently. “Foolish little king.” Then, under his breath, “Don’t you die on me. I will consider it highly irresponsible behavior on your part, and I expect better than that from the King of Katolis.”

Bait nestled closer to Ezran with a soft mumble.

As the day wore on and the Moon rose in the east, the reawakening pains in Runaan’s arm became nearly unbearable. He found Ezran’s jar of cattail gel and applied it generously, though it didn’t soak deeply enough to numb most of the pain. “I was wrong, Ezran,” he murmured. “There is more than one way to release. Dark magic is a force of destruction. And Moonshadow binding ribbons are meant as a sacred bond. But… that ribbon represented _your_ life. If anyone deserves to destroy it…” He sighed grumpily, sounding like Bait. “I do not enjoy having to think new thoughts like this, and when—_when_—you wake, I’ll be sure to express my exasperation with your methods. And I’m _already_ glad I never swore to obey you.”

Bait grumbled at him for that, but Runaan wasn’t sorry. He rinsed out the cloth with fresh water and reapplied it to Ezran’s forehead. “Even Rayla was never _this_ willful—” Runaan’s eyes widened, and his fingers gently squeezed Ezran’s shoulder.

Bait croaked inquiringly.

“There _is_ more than one way to release,” Runaan repeated. “Perhaps Rayla will find a different way, as well.” He cut his bright eyes over to Bait. “Preferably without using dark magic.”

“I just want to help…” Ezran’s voice was faint.

“Ezran?” Runaan leaned over him, but the king’s eyes stayed shut.

“…Just wanna help…” Ezran tossed his head, caught in a fever dream, and whimpered.

Runaan exchanged a worried look with Bait. Had the little king been able to hear him all this time? Runaan felt a pang of guilt for his judgmental commentary. He leaned down next to Ezran’s ear. “You did help, Ezran. You did help me, I promise. I’m sorry I was upset with you. You had your reasons. I shouldn’t expect so much from you. You’re a child, and you’re still learning. Even if you’ve surprised me nearly every day I’ve known you. Just hold tight, Ezran. Bait and I will care for you. Hold tight.”

Ezran let out a soft hum that might have been a reply.

Runaan let his forehead fall into his good hand. Criticizing a child for doing the best he could—what had he been thinking? His hatred of dark magic had been so easy to embrace. A dark thought arose as he bitterly contemplated dark magic’s existence—killing Viren wouldn’t destroy the terrible plague that dark magic brought to the world, but it would certainly save lives.

_No. I promised. I won’t be Xadia’s dark magic anymore. I need to save Viren’s life, too. Save him from myself. From who I _used_ to be._

Ezran tossed and turned, jostling Bait. Runaan held his little shoulders down so he didn’t hurt himself. “Shh, Ezran. We’re here. I’m here. You’re going to be all right.”

A darkness stole across his soul, catching him by surprise. His arcanum hushed, and his connection to his Primal Source dimmed too far to trace.

New Moon.

Runaan gasped, lost and suddenly spinning in darkness. The sensation only lasted a short while, but a Moonshadow without his Moon felt very vulnerable, indeed. _I’m not the only one who’s vulnerable right now. _Runaan stared down at Ezran’s tense face as the little king grimaced and moaned. _What would you do with an arcanum, Ezran?_

Half-remembered myths fluttered around the edges of Runaan’s mind, and he shifted into motion. He sat cross-legged by Ezran’s head and settled the little king’s poof of hair atop his crossed ankles, resting his fingertips on the boy’s temples. Bait, uncertain and protective, moved atop Ezran’s chest.

Runaan closed his eyes and slipped into a meditative state. It felt strangely hollow to meditate without his arcanum pinging off the Moon, as if his thoughts echoed in a vast black chamber. And without the Moon’s guidance, he couldn’t find Ezran’s spirit, even if he’d been another Moonshadow elf. But the Moon would return soon. And when it did…

The Moonlight returned and flooded Runaan’s soul, sending a shiver down his spine. He reached out with his spirit and his arcanum.

Ezran was standing alone in a cold black nothingness.

_Ezran. Can you hear me?_

_Runaan? How are you doing that? I can hear you, but I know I’m not using my ears. How did you even find me in here? I don’t know where I am._

_It’s… a Moonshadow elf thing._

_Okay. Am I… am I dying?_

_That’s why I’m here._

_…Oh. Are you going to guide me to the land of the dead or something?_

_What? No. I’m trying to help you wake up._

_Oh. Whew. You had me worried for a minute._

_You had me worried, too. I’m still worried. And so is Bait._

_I can feel Bait. I don’t mean to worry him. Or you. I just wanted to help._

_I know you did. And you have helped. My arm is already getting better. But you’ve paid a heavy price for helping the way you did. I don’t want it to kill you._

_That’s nice of you, Runaan. What should I do?_

_I want you to think about what’s most important to you, Ezran. What you feel pulling you, deep in your heart. What pulls me is my duty. My love of my people. I want to serve, to be useful. At the very heart of me, that is what makes me a Moonshadow. Not my swords. Not my spirit voice. Not my white hair. The clarity of the Moon’s light lives within me. What is it that lives in you, Ezran?_

_You mean besides jelly tarts?_

_And sass, I see. What else?_

_Heh, okay, you got me. Well… I love… everything. Bait, and raccoons, and snails, and the tower crows._

_Animals?_

_Yeah! They’re bright and pretty in my head. But also other things. Like mossy grottoes and quiet forests and sunlight on snow and pretty rocks that sparkle in the light._

_Think about those things now, Ezran. They may help you._

_Okay… How?_

_Sit with me. Just like this, and close your eyes. Breathe in. Breathe out. Feel what pulls at you. Let it fill you from the inside out. Let it spill out of you._

_Um, Runaan, you’re spilling moonlight._

_That’s what fills me._

_I’m not sure I know how to…_

_There is one thing that connects us, Ezran. Life is precious to me. I protect it whenever I can. But you connect with it. You breathe it in and hear it in your mind. Do you remember when you said you couldn’t reach into my mind?_

_Yeah. But you can reach into mine._

_And you can hear me, even without an arcanum, because of your gift. Your gift can do much more than let you talk with Bait, if you let it._

_What are you saying?_

_Let it grow within you, Ezran, and find out. It wants to grow and thrive. That’s its natural impetus._

_Its what?_

_It wants to live within you, Ezran. See what that feels like._

_But… what is ‘it’? What is my gift?_

_It is the Earth arcanum, Ezran._

_What??_

Runaan’s Moon waxed overhead, and slowly, slowly, he coaxed Ezran out of his fevered state. Ezran’s spirit sat across from Runaan’s and figured out how to spill moss and butterflies the way Runaan was spilling moonlight.

When the little king woke hours later, he found Runaan looking down at him and Bait snuggled on his chest. “Whoa, Runaan. That was intense. Am I…? Did I just…?”

Runaan smiled and helped Ezran sit up. He poured him a cup of berry juice and handed it over. “Well done, Ezran.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ohmygod I love this chapter so much! Did you see any of this coming? *gleeful giggles*


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A training montage, of sorts, as Runaan prepares to go after Viren in order to keep his oath to Ezran.

“Whatcha doing?” Ezran’s question floated up from behind Runaan as the elf secured a length of rope around a ceiling beam on one side of the room. Bait glowed for him on a nearby barrel top.

“Training.”

“Can I watch?”

Runaan’s stiff fingers nearly dropped the end of the rope. “Ezran, you’re not even strong enough to sit up yet.”

Ezran let out an interested hum. “So that’s a yes.”

Knot complete, Runaan took hold of the rope that arced across the top of the room and hefted himself up with both hands. But his left arm wasn’t nearly ready for that kind of demand. Runaan fell off the rope with an undignified yelp and landed out of Ezran’s sight with a tumbling thud and a muffled curse.

“Runaan? Hey.”

“Hey yourself.”

“No. _Hay_. To land on. Just in case.”

A long, disgruntled pause. “Perhaps your idea is not without merit, Your Majesty.”

***

“Pushups, huh?”

Runaan let his hair cuffs clink on the stone floor before pressing himself back up again. This, his arm could handle. Though his arm shook, it did get the blood moving and forced his long-idle muscles to remember how to work. “It’s a start.”

“Soren really likes pushups, too.”

Runaan grunted through his teeth. “That explains why he hits so hard.”

***

Runaan hung upside down from his knees, dangling from the rope he’d finally managed to climb onto. His long ponytail brushed the pile of hay where Ezran lay and swept across Bait’s head.

Bait eyed the elf’s hair and grumbled.

Runaan looked at Ezran. “Grape.”

Ezran stabbed a grape with his fork and held it up at arm’s length. Runaan bit it off the fork and flexed up into a series of hanging sit-ups. When he lowered himself again, the end of his hair tumbled all over Bait. “Grape.”

Ezran held another grape up for him. “Bait, you can move, you know.”

Bait merely croaked.

“Bait looks good with long hair,” Runaan commented around his grape. “I think he knows it, too.”

Bait glowed orangey-pink during Runaan’s next set of sit-ups and sat up taller when Runaan relaxed enough to hang down again. The elf eyed the glow toad without comment as his hair fell all over him again.

“Grape.”

***

“How are you feeling, Ezran?” Runaan asked.

“I’m feeling a lot better. Very weird. But in a good way. I kind of feel like I can hear the whole castle breathing. Is that normal?”

“I’m no Earthblood, but probably. Try to lie still and relax for now. You’re still not recovered.”

“Says the elf walking around on his hands. Your arm’s still a little purple.”

Runaan looked at him upside down. “My knee needed a break. And I have a pile of hay to fall on.”

Bait let out a sarcastic croak, and Ezran nodded. “Yeah. I’m on that pile of hay, too.”

“I won’t land on you.”

“You can’t know that for sure.”

Runaan’s voice was steady. “Yes, I c—”

Bait flicked out his long pointy tongue and smacked Runaan’s forearm. The elf yelped in surprise, lost his balance, and tumbled down. He landed on his good arm and good knee in the hay just above Bait, and his ponytail spilled across the glow toad’s head again.

“…See, Ezran? Not a hair out of place. On you, that is.” To Bait, Runaan said, “My hair, on the other hand, is a total mess. I will remember this utter treachery, toad.” Runaan gave Bait a mock glare.

Bait ignored Runaan’s threat and lifted his chin as if preening about his new look.

***

“You called him Ethari,” Ezran said out of the blue.

Runaan bent over backward from one barrel top to the next beside Ezran’s hay bed and kicked up into a balanced handstand. His ponytail dangled near Bait, and the glow toad eyed it warily. “Did I?”

“Bait said so. And you told me that he gives you stuff.”

Runaan piked downward and sat atop the barrel, resting his heels against its rounded belly with silent ease. “Cheese?”

Ezran forked him a cheese cube from where he lay, and Runaan pulled it free with deft fingers and popped it into his mouth. “He must be really patient,” Ezran said.

Runaan looked down at the little king. Bait’s upglow lit his hair and shadowed his eyes. “What makes you say that?”

Ezran’s grin was teasing. “You’re really grumpy and stubborn. But he’s given you more than one thing. So he must be really patient. And he must like you a lot.”

Runaan felt his cheeks warm, and a smile tugged at one corner of his mouth. “Perhaps.”

“Wait, wait. Runaan, are you… _blushing_?”

“No.”

Ezran chuckled. “Bait, is he blushing?”

Bait’s light shifted colors a few times while the boy and the glow toad stared studiously at Runaan’s cheeks. Exasperated, Runaan grabbed his side tails and hid his cheeks behind them. “Stop that. I just have naturally pink cheeks. It’s a Moonshadow elf thing.”

“Mmhmm, okay. I’ve seen Callum blushing before, you know.” Bait grumped and returned to his usual yellow glow. Ezran silently offered Runaan another cube of cheese, which Runaan snatched and ate atop his barrel. “I guess I never thought about assassins having families,” Ezran said.

“Family… isn’t quite the right word. It’s… complicated,” Runaan replied.

Ezran’s eyebrows rose. “Oh. You’re not, like… married? Is that not a thing in Xadia, between two guys?”

An old pain settled deep in Runaan’s chest. _An assassin can only be bound to death, not to life._ “Oh, it _can_ be. But assassins’ lives are different than other Moonshadows’.”

Ezran’s voice was soft. “But you’re not an assassin anymore, Runaan. You should get to be happy like everyone else.”

Runaan’s pale brows rose as he looked down at the resting king, and a new warmth eased the old ache around his heart.

***

“How did you cast the spell, Ezran?” Runaan asked as he hung upside down from the rope again.

“There were whole shelves of notes on spells in that dungeon lair,” Ezran responded. He held up a carrot slice on the fork, and Runaan bit it off before pumping out another series of sit-ups. The boy continued, “I wasn’t looking for a magic knife spell on purpose, but when I found it, I thought of you.”

“I don’t know what letting dark magic into your mind will do to you, even if you have connected to a primal source now. Promise me you won’t try anything like that again without talking to me first.” Runaan shifted along the rope until he dangled beneath it. His knees wrapped around the rope from both sides and he hung from his good hand.

Ezran put a carrot stick in Runaan’s empty hand, and Runaan held it in his teeth like a grass stem. “All right, I promise,” Ezran said. “I really thought it would be easy to free you and save your arm. And you know what? _It was_. But then I felt awful. So bad I might’ve died. You didn’t have to help me. I did exactly what you say humans always do, didn’t I? You could’ve left me to my fate, whatever it was. But you didn’t.” Ezran paused until Runaan turned and met his eyes. “Thanks. That means a lot to me.”

Runaan bit his carrot stick gingerly, mindful of his missing tooth. “You’re welcome. I have no interest in Katolis being ruled by a dark mage king. And you couldn’t have fully understood what you were doing. It would’ve been wrong to leave you to face that fate alone.” Runaan switched arms, testing his weaker grip. Bait grumbled up at him. Runaan tried to pull himself upward, but his fingers weren’t in the mood to cooperate, and his grip failed. He swung down, dangling from his knees, and his ponytail slapped across Bait’s head.

Ezran giggled, but Runaan kept a perfectly straight face. “Bait. We meet again.”

Bait eyed all the soft white hair falling across him and batted his eyelashes.

***

Ezran’s next question got lost in the wind as Runaan dashed past him, running laps around the room’s walls. Runaan leaped to the next wall, sprang backward into a tucked somersault, and landed on the floor on his feet. “What was that?”

“I said, is he handsome? Your Ethari?”

Runaan’s sigh was one of exasperation. “I’m not discussing this with you.”

Ezran chuckled. “He _is_!”

Runaan tried one of his sharp mentor stares. “Ezran.”

The stare was entirely ineffective against Ezran’s gleeful grin. “Nope, too late. I ship it.”

Runaan looked back at the boy snuggled into the hay and lifted an eyebrow. “You what?”

“I ship it. You don’t know what ‘I ship it’ means? Wow, you _are_ old. I just mean, I’m glad you’re happy.” Ezran’s smile bore no trace of judgment or restriction.

Runaan blinked at the randomly offered support. Life-bindings such as spouses and children were distractions for those in a profession so focused on death. Literally no Moonshadow had ever said such a thing to him in his life. He had absolutely no idea what to say. With his cheeks pink from more than exertion, Runaan began to run laps the other way around the walls.

***

Ezran finally felt well enough to sit up and munch on some jelly tarts. Runaan sat on a low box nearby and practiced drawing his bowblade’s string. He was relieved that his bowstring arm wasn’t the damaged one. The string drew back easily enough, but his left arm still trembled as he held the bow at arm’s length.

“Maybe you should take a break,” Ezran commented. “You’ve been training almost constantly for two days now. Jelly tart?”

Runaan eyed the pastry and reluctantly set his bowblade aside. He took a bite of the jelly tart and realized that he was, once again, very hungry. “I do have a lot of eating to catch up on.”

“You sure do. You’ve eaten almost everything I stole from the kitchens.”

Runaan polished off the jelly tart and licked his fingers. “I’ll get us more.”

Ezran said, “I’ll come with you.”

“I know my way to the kitchens now. And you need to rest.”

Ezran sighed grumpily. “I literally just told _you_ that. You’ve been prepping pretty hard. Getting back in shape, eating lots of food. Do you think Viren’s going to come for you soon?”

“I know he will.” Runaan thought over the plan he’d been piecing together. “Ezran, I need to know how much you truly trust me.”

Ezran squinted a dubious eye at him. “Because if I don’t, I won’t say yes?”

Runaan tipped his good horn. “Probably not.”

Ezran considered that. “But… you think your plan is the best way.”

Runaan’s turquoise eyes glowed steadily. “I do.”

“Not a shortcut? None of Xadia’s dark magic?”

Runaan’s response was immediate. “No, no shortcuts. My oath will hold.”

Ezran took a slow, deep breath, studying Runaan intently. “You’re an elf of your word. You saved my life when we were still enemies. And you watched over me and helped me when I made a decision you hated. I don’t _need_ to trust you with my life, Runaan. You’ve already _proven_ that you’ll protect it, just like you said you would. So… let’s do it. What’s your plan to capture Lord Viren?”

Runaan’s turquoise gaze slid from Ezran to Bait and back again. His eyes crinkled at the corners as a sly smile spread across his lips. “Ezran, I’m going to turn you into a glow toad.”


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Runaan and Viren make their moves, and the circle completes.

_A small breeze gusted across Viren’s desk, wavering the light from the candelabra on his desk. A shiver swiftly followed, slithering down the back of his neck, and he looked up from his letter with an alert squint. _

_The room lay still. The solid oak door to the hallway was barred. The inner doorways stood well lit and empty._

_But the window, once barred as well, now hung open._

_Viren caught a flicker of movement near the moonlit edge of the window frame—a horned silhouette, the flash of metal—and his instincts began screaming. His hand dipped into a pouch on his belt._

_The Moonshadow arrow flew out of the moonlight just as the fireball left Viren’s hand. Purple flame consumed the arrow’s shaft and dropped its smoking arrowhead to the floor. The fireball blasted across the room until it took out the entire wall, blowing the window to smithereens and obliterating the stone. The roar of the blast died away, and Viren’s heart thrummed hard as he tensed, on his feet, hand full of purple fire, ready to strike again. In the distance, rocky fragments pattered to the courtyard far below. Guards began shouting._

_“I knew it. I knew he never left.”_

***

Runaan perched like a cat on the corner of a balcony railing across the castle courtyard from the gaping hole in the wall. His bright eyes followed Lord Viren’s every movement as the dark mage stalked through the rubble that scattered across the cobblestones below, searching for any sign that he’d killed his would-be assassin. His fists, jerky body language, and the echoes of his frustration put a dark smile on Runaan’s face. When Viren whirled and stormed away, leaving the guards to begin cleaning up his mess, Runaan melted back into the shadows.

***

The fireflies came when the Moon was at its furthest point below the dark horizon, deep in the wee hours of the night. Some deep instinct woke Runaan anyway—an instinct honed in battle, and in the deepest shadows of the world. An instinct he had learned the hard way never to second-guess. His eyes flickered wide, glowing in the dark, and he found himself surrounded by the fireflies’ soft purple glows.

“Ezran,” he hissed.

The other pile of hay rustled in response, and Bait lit up inquiringly.

“No one asked you, toad,” Runaan sassed.

Bait grumped and dimmed. Ezran stirred in the hay. “What’s going on? Is it morning yet?”

Runaan was already on his feet with his bowblade in his hand. The fireflies filled the room with low light. The same light that had filled Ezran’s eyes. The light of dark magic. “He’s here.”

Ezran sat up sharply and gasped. “Lord Viren?” he cried.

“Prince Ezran.” The dark mage’s voice filled the room with its smooth menace. “Come here, son, and I’ll protect you from the elf.”

Runaan’s eyes sought the mage’s shadow in the dark room. He bared his teeth when he found it. Twisting his bowblade in two, he leaped against the wall of the narrow room and ran full tilt toward Viren, blades out and eager.

A low, dark shape darted toward Viren, and in the dimness, Ezran’s voice carried breathlessly. “Lord Viren! He killed my dad!”

“Yes, he did. I’ll take care of him for you.”

From the wall, Runaan saw Viren extend his hand toward the approaching figure. He only needed ten more steps.

_Moment of truth. All illusions fall sometime._

Viren’s hand flared with purple light. A pair of familiar Moonshadow daggers flew from the dark mage’s sleeve, hurled by smoky purple hands that hovered around his own. They cut into the figure rushing toward him, rocking it back and toppling it to the floor.

Ezran let out a dramatic gasp.

Shocked at Viren’s unexpected tactic, Runaan bared his teeth and lunged off the wall, blades high and on his left.

The dark mage pivoted to face him, wearing a terrifying gray face and a dry smirk. The firefly light shot back into his hand, leaving the room in utter darkness even as Runaan leaped in midair.

_He won’t be where he was._ In the pitch blackness, Runaan plotted likely escape routes and spiraled toward the most likely one. His feet landed solidly on the stone floor, and his blades flashed out. But he encountered nothing but air.

Air and _smoke_.

Purple figures boiled up around him, glowing luridly, bearing Moonshadow assassins’ weapons. Familiar weapons. His teammates had fallen. But in a twisted perversion of Moonshadow ways, Viren hadn’t let them rest. Runaan had planned several tactical approaches to taking down the dark mage, but this… _this_ abomination hadn’t even occurred to him. In bone-deep horror, Runaan’s breath caught, and he _hesitated_.

“Runaan, look out!” Ezran cried.

“What?” Viren muttered, stunned that his prey had somehow survived.

Runaan had more immediate problems than Viren’s slaughter of a hay-stuffed dummy. He spun, dodged, blocked. Fergel’s long bladestaff would’ve left him several inches shorter. Mayr’s hookblade swung for his feet, and he leaped high, twisting, ponytail swirling. Bren slashed his sword through the space Runaan had just occupied. The smoky assassins chased him across a stack of barrels, and he needed every ounce of his hard-won strength and flexibility to stay ahead of them. More of Branneg’s daggers peppered the walls as Runaan dodged, each missing him by a hairsbreadth.

“Bait!” Runaan called.

The glow toad flared to life. Runaan darted along the wall, smoky assassins nearly close enough to grab his hair, and spotted the Sun creature atop a barrel. His little clawed feet were spread wide, and he grimaced as if ready for a fight. Ezran huddled warily behind him.

The room had only ever had one exit. Runaan would need to find a way to use it, while holding to his oaths.

All of them.

_Moon help me, I need to be perfect, but I am so far from it…_

The former assassin gritted his teeth and leaped off the wall. The deadly purple smoke creatures flowed after him, unhindered anymore by little things like joints and muscles. Runaan affixed his bowblade together as he somersaulted through the air. He tucked it across his shoulder just in time to roll skiddingly across the floor and rise on one knee in front of Bait’s barrel. Without slowing, he scooped the toad and the little king under his arms and bolted toward the door. Viren stood between him and freedom—_again_—and clutched a writhing tentacle in his hand.

“Have you met Bait?” he hissed at the startled dark mage.

“Yes, I—” Viren actually began.

“Say hello to my little friend!” Ezran hollered.

The glow toad’s flash was blinding. Runaan managed to hold his course toward the door with his eyes shut. Viren, on the other hand, let out an undignified yelp, dropped his tentacle in the dark, and got enveloped in the purple smoke of the dark assassins. They shredded into tendrils around him and had to re-form.

In the hallway, Runaan glanced back just long enough to appreciate his good work—and his luck—but he kept up his flat-out run, feeling the air tug at his ponytail as it streamed out behind him. They were far from safe. So _very_ far from safe.

“What now?” Ezran asked as he clung to Runaan’s shoulder. “Those things can chase us everywhere.”

Runaan’s grin was a glimmer of steel in the dark. One of his many tactical plans would still serve. “Not _every_where.”

Two minutes later, Runaan sucked in desperate breaths and tried to calm his hammering heart. Now came the waiting, and he needed to be ready. He felt Ezran squirm beside him in the chill of their hiding place. He eased a hand over and squeezed the little king’s shoulder in the darkness. The fabric in his other hand lay heavy, reassuring him.

And then they were there. The smoky assassins poured into the room, swirled around, searching, seeking. They leaped up into the rafters. They checked the window. Searched behind the curtains. Through the discarded furniture.

Their swirling became angry, desperate. Runaan found himself judging their new forms as less adaptive than the originals. _How very informative. How very dark magic._

He pressed a firm hand on Ezran’s shoulder, pushing him downward. Then he reached behind him and tapped Bait, who clung to his shoulders and hid under his hair.

The sunken bathing pool in the old bath house lit like the sun, silhouetting Runaan and Ezran beneath its ripply surface. Above them, all four of the smoky assassins paused, turned, and converged as one. They swooped to the lip of the bathing pool and drew back their weapons, ready to strike.

Runaan ripped away the reed stem he’d been breathing through, thrust up from beneath the water, and swung the heavy curtain fabric hard. It arced from left to right, its sturdy wet cloth smacking each assassin in turn and collecting their ashy substance before the creatures could flit away. Their weapons clattered to the stone floor with a series of metallic death knells. The sodden curtain slapped down on top of them, an undignified burial shroud for the undeservedly undead.

Runaan stilled in the waist-deep pool. He leaned his hands on its edge, cold and shivering with far more than the water’s effects. The ashes of his friends smeared the wet cloth beneath his fingers. He’d killed them himself, this time. _You cannot shatter mercy and find its fragments among the ashes of the dead. There is merely the next breath for the living._

But Viren was still coming. He had no time to mourn yet. He reached under the water and lifted Ezran out, then he handed him his glow toad. “Hide. He wants me first, and he can’t find you without more fireflies. Hurry.”

With water dripping from his hair, Ezran nodded and dashed off into the dusty labyrinth of the bath house’s abandoned rooms.

Runaan remained in the pool as Bait’s light retreated and went out. The icy bite of the cold river water served to numb his feelings and focus his intent, and he desperately needed both at that moment. His chilled fingers smoothed the wrinkles from the curtain, as if the perfection of the cloth’s weave might soothe the tortured souls it had dispelled. “I don’t know if I can avenge you and hold to my new oaths. I don’t know. And I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“They can’t hear you, you know. They are, in fact, quite dead.” Viren’s conversational tone carried from the doorway. He held that silvery staff, as always, and a blue crystal glowed in his other hand.

On instinct, Runaan leaped from the pool and crouched on its lip, eyes bright in the dimness. “They’re not nearly dead enough, and you’ll answer for that.”

Viren hummed through a considering smile. “I don’t think so. And what’s this? No weapons in your hands? Did you drop your precious swords at the bottom of the pool? Would you like me to wait until you retrieve them?” Viren’s taunt was all the more cutting for its dismissive tone, as if he spoke to a child. “I seem to have overdone my expectations of you. How silly of me.”

Runaan kept his tone cold. “I’m not an assassin today. And I don’t plan to kill you.”

“What good news. I don’t plan to kill you either. Yet. Now tell me, elf, where is the prince?” An impatient bite returned to Viren’s tone.

“Callum is in Xadia with the egg of the Dragon Prince,” Runaan replied easily. He stood silently, but made no further moves.

Viren rightly suspected a trap. “_Ezran_. I mean _Prince Ezran_. Tell me where he is, and I will show you mercy. I can be very merciful when I wish to be.”

Runaan’s flat look was his first reply. “Do not speak to me of generosity when all you offer is ordinary decency. There is no Prince Ezran. When I took his father, I created King Ezran. And I am answering for that. To him, and to whomever else he chooses.”

Apparently that was the wrong thing to say. Viren’s face twisted into a grimace of outrage. “You… _dare_… You have no claim on kingmaking, you impudent, disgusting _murderer_. You are nothing but a walking _crime_. You have nothing to offer the world but _destruction_! What do you know of kings, of _responsibility_, of—”

_A rant on my failures. Excellent_.

Runaan sprang forward while Viren was mid-outraged-gesture and clapped a hand over his mouth. Hard turquoise eyes glared into furious gray ones. The elf and the mage struggled hard as Viren attempted to reach for a spell component in his belt pouch. Runaan gritted his teeth, pulled Viren tight against him, kicked away Viren’s staff, and heaved himself backward into the pool.

The blue crystal sank to the bottom of the pool and clinked gently against the stone, casting light from the side as the two fought beneath the surface. Runaan spun and pushed Viren down below him, floating above him like an avenging spirit, refusing to allow him access to the surface. Viren’s expression faded from rage to alarm as he realized he couldn’t speak any magic incantations underwater.

Runaan read his change in expression. His smile was as hard as his grip on Viren’s shoulders. His long ponytail floated wide around him, glowing silver-blue in the crystal’s light.

Viren scrabbled a hand toward Runaan’s bowblade, but it was carefully propped against the far side of the bottom of the pool. Then his hand flared purple, and a remnant cantrip formed a magical hand that reached out and gripped the weapon by its handle. Runaan stared in shock and disgust as the dark magic hand touched his precious bowblade.

Viren’s other, real hand shot through the water and tangled in Runaan’s ponytail, pulling him further from the bowblade, but Runaan’s feet sought the wall of the pool and pushed off. The two tangled again in the middle of the pool, and Runaan’s bowblade flashed and splashed between them.

Runaan’s lungs began to ache. He could see desperation edging Viren’s eyes as well. The surface of the water was so close. One single breath could well sway the fight in someone’s favor.

Viren clung to the bowblade with both hands, forcing the blades protectively between him and Runaan. Runaan’s instincts shouted at him to take back his weapon, to use it. His hands fairly itched to drive those swords straight through Viren’s heart. But his promise to Ezran rang in the back of his skull and shivered along his horns.

_Find another way._

Runaan let Viren shove him upward until his horns broke the surface. He jerked Viren close, so close their noses brushed. Then he pushed off of Viren, arched out of the water for a quick breath, and kicked downward again, driving Viren into the floor of the pool with a soft thud.

Viren swung the bowblade, and though it sliced through the water slower than usual, it caught Runaan high on his left shoulder and knocked him off of Viren. Runaan used the momentum of the strike to lunge for the glowing crystal while Viren clawed his way to the surface. Runaan thrust off the side of the pool again, tackling Viren from behind and dragging him under, even as Viren swung the bowblade back toward him. Runaan wrapped his legs around Viren, pinning his arms to his sides, and worked the crystal between Viren’s teeth like a bit, filling his mouth with water while his weight kept Viren from reaching the surface again.

Viren had taken a breath after Runaan had. Runaan could hold Viren under long enough to make him pass out. But he might not survive the process. Neither of them might, despite Runaan’s promise.

He closed his eyes and held on tighter as Viren’s struggles weakened. Visions of Rayla and Ethari swam in his mind, and once again, he let them go_. I am already dead._

Something small tapped his nose. Runaan opened his eyes and saw a bright light above the water’s surface. Bait. And Ezran at his side, pushing something long and thin down through the water.

The reed stem.

Warmth filled Runaan’s chest. _It seems I am always too quick to die around this child._

Runaan opened his mouth and took the stem in his teeth. After closing his lips around it, he blew out all the water, making a small fountain above the surface. He inhaled, and sweet, cool air filled his lungs once again.

After that, it was just a matter of waiting. Once Viren stopped wriggling, Runaan counted to thirty, just to be safe, before hauling the heavy, waterlogged mage out of the pool, along with his precious bowblade. He dropped the mage face-down and stepped against his back to push water out of his lungs.

Once Runaan crouched at Viren’s side, his hands began to shake. The cold and the shock were getting to him. He looked down at Viren, whose nose was smushed against the cold stone floor as he lay unconscious, and saw only the faces of his friends. The friends Viren had burnt and resurrected to do his dark will. The friends Runaan had had to fight, to destroy. The friends Runaan’s last contact with would now and forever be one of turmoil and battle, of perversion and undeath.

Ezran stared at him silently, hugging Bait closely. He knew what Runaan was thinking. Probably because Runaan had started grimacing a few minutes ago and hadn’t stopped.

He turned to look at the young king and held his troubled blue gaze with his own. “I promised.” He worked the tension in his jaw loose and spoke again. “I promised, Ezran.”

“Runaan, your hair’s red.”

“What?”

“I think you’re bleeding.”

Runaan pressed his fingers to the side of his head where Ezran pointed, and they came away red. That last swing Viren had managed with Runaan’s bowblade had made contact, but Runaan had been too focused to notice. _Double-edged, indeed._ “I’ll be fine.”

“You’re a terrible liar.”

“It’s not going to kill me.”

Ezran glared up at him and held out a handkerchief from his pocket. “Just because you can’t help your friends doesn’t mean you shouldn’t help yourself.”

“Doesn’t it?” Runaan murmured. But he took the handkerchief and pressed it against the cut until the bleeding slowed.

After gagging the dark mage and binding his hands tightly behind his back, Runaan rifled through Viren’s pouches and stripped them off the mage’s belt. Searched him thoroughly, roughly, for anything that might possibly pass for a spell component. Tore open the seams of his tunic of office, sliced free the purple cabochon Viren wore at his throat. Even ripped off his boots and sliced them into pieces.

“Slicing up his boots? Really?” Ezran questioned.

Runaan’s smile was hard. “I know what I keep in mine. He really should have checked more thoroughly.”

Ezran shrugged one shoulder. “Okay, that’s fair. But… now what?”

Runaan looked from Ezran to Bait. Viren coughed and dragged a rough breath into his lungs, and Runaan dropped his gaze to the wet mage. “Now, we come full circle.”

***

Runaan secured the manacle around Viren’s right wrist and stepped back, observing his work. The dark mage knelt exactly where Runaan had, hanging forward in chains, head drooping. The only difference was that Runaan had taken Viren’s boots and left him his white undershirt, and his mouth was securely gagged.

Runaan glanced down at Ezran, who let Bait sit atop his hair. “Does this meet with your satisfaction?”

Ezran studied Viren, who glared back at him. “Not really. I don’t like locking people up. For any reason. But I know we need to stop the war, and I think this will help. I hope it’ll help.” Ezran lifted his eyes to Runaan. “You won’t treat him the way he treated you, will you?”

Runaan slid a knowing gaze to Viren. The dark mage knew full well what he’d done to Runaan, but he bared his teeth and glared up at the elf, defiant and entirely unapologetic. “I think I can show him a better way.”

“That’s good. Thank you.”

“Ezran, will you give us a moment? And leave Bait.”

Ezran’s gaze flicked between Viren and Runaan again. But he took a deep breath and nodded, handing Bait to Runaan. He let himself out of the dungeon, and its door squeaked shut behind him.

Alone with his tormentor, Runaan set Bait on his shoulder and knelt on one knee before him. He took Viren’s chin in his hand and forced the mage to look him in the eye. “I do hope you’re comfortable, Viren.”

The mage’s glare was perfectly steady in its dismissive judgment.

Runaan offered him a brief half-smile. “Yes, I felt the same. You and I have treated each other like foolish, unrepentant children. But we’re not children, are we?”

Viren jerked his chin free and settled back on his heels. His breath seethed through the gag.

Runaan rested his elbow atop his knee and studied the dark mage for a long moment. “I found the silence and the dark in this cell to be particularly conducive to the contemplation of what follows the life that we choose for ourselves. Perhaps you’ll find it offers you the same benefit. I do hope so.”

Runaan rose and headed toward the door with Bait glowing brightly atop his shoulder. He turned in the doorway, letting the light fall across the captive man.

“You’ll need it.”


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Runaan goes to work - on Viren, on Ezran, and on his next mission.

“The walls are whispering that Soren and Claudia were spotted in town,” Ezran said. “They’ll be back in the castle soon, and that’s gonna get complicated.”

“Then it’s time to pay attention. Where are my feet?” Runaan asked.

Ezran cocked his head, puzzled, as he studied the former assassin up and down. “Uhh. Underneath you?”

A brief smile crossed Runaan’s lips. He shifted his stance wider and asked again. “And now?”

“Okay, you look a little scarier now. Like you might attack.”

Runaan folded his arms behind his back. “Even now?”

“Hmm.” Ezran’s eyes lingered on Runaan’s shoulders as if trying to guess what his arms were doing. “Maybe?”

Runaan flowed into motion. While his arms remained locked behind his back peaceably, he snapped his hips around, and his foot arched up in a flicker of motion and halted a bare inch from Ezran’s tufted hair.

Ezran’s wide blue eyes studied Runaan’s boot. “Whoa.”

“Would you care to reassess?” Runaan asked quietly. He stood straight again and smiled down at Ezran.

Ezran’s gaze lingered on Runaan’s boot. “That wasn’t what I expected you to do. But that’s your point, isn’t it?” His brow wrinkled as he processed Runaan’s lesson, and Runaan waited patiently. “Your stance gave away your intention, even when I wasn’t sure what you were up to.”

“Good. Anything else?”

Ezran grinned. “Your feet are just as deadly as your hands. So, uhh… When I’m dealing with people I might not trust—like Soren and Claudia—I should keep an eye out for warning signs and unconventional weapons?”

Runaan smiled and ruffled Ezran’s hair. “Well done, little king.”

***

Runaan swung hard one last time, and the wooden beam he struck reluctantly slid straight, bracing the top of the moving stone staircase firmly against the ceiling. “No more unwanted visitors,” he proclaimed, resting his makeshift club over one shoulder.

“Not through that way, anyway,” Ezran said. He jabbed a thumb over his shoulder at the far archway out of the dungeon. Bait concurred with a grumpy growl.

Runaan blew a loose lock of hair out of his eyes and eyed the dark corridor. “Right.”

***

Runaan studied Viren’s grayed appearance with muted distaste. How could he have survived the ravages of dark magic this long? How could he look this damaged and still breathe? “I called myself already dead. But I wonder which one of us that applies to more.”

The dark mage glared at him as he hung in his chains with his gag lowered around his neck like a soft necklace. Bait’s light caught his cheekbones and played off the white in his hair, the dying gray starbursts across his skin.

“At least drink something.” Runaan poured a cup full of liquid and held it out to Viren.

Viren’s gray sclera gleamed as his gaze shifted suspiciously to the cup Runaan offered.

Runaan managed a small smirk. “Yes. It’s berry juice.”

Viren’s stomach growled loudly.

Bait answered it with a wry grumble.

Runaan sighed and replaced Viren’s gag. “You will make a different choice later.”

Viren raised a disbelieving eyebrow, but Runaan merely lifted his chin. “You’re no Moonshadow. You _will_ make a different choice.”

***

Runaan rested his hands in his lap and spoke with his eyes shut. “Fear is the mind-taker. Fear is the shadow within the light. Fear will take you and consume you and never look back. Because fear does not see _you_. It only sees the moonlight it chases. Wherever the light touches, the shadow will follow, sooner or later. There is no escaping the shadow. There is only acceptance. Moonshadows blend into the night not so we can take life, but so we understand the shadow within ourselves. So that we reach out to the fear before fear reaches out to us. Do you understand?”

Ezran shifted his feet on the stone floor. “Umm. Kinda? Except for the part where you have to sit on the counter to teach this to me.”

Runaan popped his eyes open and gave Ezran a look of forced patience. “This is just how I sit when I get to know the deepest parts of myself. It helps to sit this way when I explain it out loud.”

“Ohh. That makes sense.” Ezran scrambled up onto the workspace opposite Runaan in the dungeon’s main room and sat cross-legged, too. Bait hopped up and mirrored his pose, holding his little round chin high. “Please, continue.”

Runaan blinked at the little king and took a deep breath.

***

“Soren and Claudia will start looking for him soon. We’re running out of time.”

“Well, what do you think we should do with him?” Ezran asked as he and Runaan stuffed a sack full of jelly tarts in the castle kitchen.

Runaan tossed in a couple of apples as well and heard them crunch against the jelly tarts. “He’s your prisoner. You tell me.”

Ezran looked askance at the apples. “You captured him, though.”

“To keep to my oath to protect you.” A round of wax-sealed soft cheese squished the jelly tarts next.

Ezran stopped and huffed impatiently. “Listen. You need to admit that you’re just doing things for yourself here.”

Runaan blinked and paused with another cheese wheel in his hand. “What?”

“Get your own sack. You’re squishing all my jelly tarts,” Ezran said, gesturing at the crumbly mess inside the bag. “It’s not that hard to find another sack in the kitchens. There’s a whole stack of cheesecloth in the pantry.”

Bait croaked accusingly and helped himself to a jelly tart from the sack, even though there were still plenty on the baker’s counter.

Runaan let out a patient sigh and fetched his own cheesecloth sack. When he returned, Ezran had already eaten the broken jelly tarts and set Runaan’s food back on the kitchen counter. As Runaan loaded up his own sack with apples and cheese, Ezran added, “And I know what you’re doing with Lord Viren, too. Don’t think I haven’t noticed.”

Runaan lifted his chin. “Do you approve?”

Ezran’s shoulders slumped. “I… don’t know. I don’t think I really disapprove. But… it’s hard to see him like that.”

Runaan’s expression softened. “That’s why I visit him alone. You may be the king, but you’re still a child. Growing up too soon… it has consequences.” Runaan juggled a few oranges and dropped them in the bag on top of the cheese.

“You’re not… ‘filing his horns’ or anything, are you?” Ezran asked tentatively.

Runaan stifled a flinch at the memory of what Viren had done to him. “No.”

“Okay, good, because he’s got kids too. I don’t like to think about how Rayla will feel if she knows what Lord Viren did to you, and I don’t like to think about what Soren and Claudia will feel if they knew you’d done something like that to their dad, either. Cycles, remember?”

Claudia. Lord Viren’s daughter. The young dark mage who had chained Runaan to the wall in the dungeon. “I remember,” Runaan said softly.

***

“I understand your struggle, mage,” Runaan said as he knelt before Viren. “But you simply do not have what it takes to outlast me, nor to doom yourself. If you don’t eat, you’ll die. And as ready as you think you are for that, you’re never going to be.”

“And what is it I lack, elf?” Viren’s words were frayed and dull, emotionless. He didn’t even look up.

Runaan lifted his chin until their eyes met. “A Moon arcanum.” He held up a pitcher, with an empty cup dangling from his last finger by its handle. “Shall we try again?”

Viren’s throat, parched and rough after two days with nothing to drink, spasmed at the sight of the proffered juice. With a growl of frustration, the dark mage jerked his gaze away.

Riding Runaan’s shoulder, Bait grumbled softly to himself and rolled his eyes.

Runaan _tsked_. “And here I thought you were a pragmatist.”

Viren’s gaze returned sharply, and his wrists clinked loudly as he jerked on his manacles.

Runaan’s smile was shadowed. “If you die here like an elf on his knees, how will anyone ever realize that you were right all along?”

“About what?” Viren gritted.

Runaan poured the cup full and held it out silently.

Viren met his eyes with a grimace. After a long, tense moment, he said softly, “I’ll drink, then. After you do.”

Runaan raised an eyebrow and took a mouthful of juice. He offered the opposite side of the cup to Viren, and the dark mage gulped greedily until the cup was empty. Some of the deep scarlet juice ran from the corner of his mouth and stained his white undershirt with a bloodlike spatter.

Runaan swiftly affixed the dark mage’s gag again. He studied the stain on Viren’s shirt for a long moment before meeting his unnatural gray eyes. “Sometimes it does us good to live with what we’ve done.”

***

“It’s not easy making this in here,” Runaan muttered, staring at the pile of pilfered supplies he’d gathered on the dungeon countertop.

Ezran sighed heavily and looked back at Runaan from his position standing on the counter. “But you said Viren probably has everything you need.”

Runaan’s gaze swept the counters, shelves, and piles of macabre booty on the floor. He and Ezran had begun clearing out the dungeon’s stockpiles, and Runaan had learned exactly how pragmatic Viren could be when it came to keeping unusual creatures and body parts, just in case he might need them one day. His face felt heavy with the burden of this new, unwanted knowledge. “That’s not the way I meant ‘easy’. These Xadian ingredients weren’t properly harvested. They were stolen, taken by force.”

“Oh.” Ezran turned, tiptoed among supplies along the crowded countertop, and rested a hand on Runaan’s shoulder to draw his attention. “It’s gonna be okay. Maybe not today. But someday. And when we work together to get rid of dark magic from my kingdom like this, we’ll get to that someday even sooner. Don’t you think so?”

Runaan studied Ezran for a long moment. Finally, his features softened, and a brief smile flickered across his lips. “Is your brother this cheery, too?”

“Almost. Why?”

Runaan’s thoughts flitted to Rayla. She tended to be sour and self-recriminating just like him. She could use an upbeat human prince almost as much as Runaan did. “No reason. I have what I need. Time to light the oven and destroy the rest of this contraband.”

Ezran glanced at the stone oven built into the wall. “Won’t that much smoke give us away?”

Runaan’s smile was dark.

***

Runaan left Bait at the doorway and loomed over the dark mage before him. “You believe you know best. That you understand the world more deeply than everyone else.”

Viren glared up at him steadily.

“I thought the same, until I spent a few days on my knees in this cell. Tell me, mage, have you learned anything here in the dark?”

Viren didn’t even try to answer. His eyes were fierce in Runaan’s shadow.

“Then let me illuminate you.” Runaan stepped aside, and Bait’s light shone into Viren’s eyes as the glow toad trotted forward to join the elf. Runaan knelt in front of Viren and gave Bait a boost onto his own shoulder. “Your time of contemplation is drawing to a close, and you are on the brink of changing times. It’s up to you whether you change with them or cling to your old ways.”

Bait grumbled, and Runaan skritched a finger under his chin with a fond smile. His gaze slid back to Viren, and he added, “I’ve chosen to move forward, and I did so for the sake of my daughter. I did my best raising her. And now I want to do _better_ for her, before it’s too late. And soon, it will be.”

Viren caught Runaan’s implication. Reluctantly, he asked, “And what exactly is this supposed deadline you speak of?”

Runaan’s gaze cooled. “The same one that’s about to sweep over your daughter as well. Our girls are growing up into a world full of a war of our own making, Viren. I would give Rayla life and happiness over victory, any day. Can you say the same for Claudia?”

Viren’s face shifted. “Don’t you even speak my daughter’s name, you filthy—”

Runaan seized Viren by the jaw, cutting off his words. He leaned in close with a grimace, and his eyes blazed with turquoise fire. “I will do what I deem necessary. No more, no less. I know you understand that perspective. You would have sacrificed me for your cause. Burnt my heart for your victory. So hear me now, Viren, for I have never spoken truer words in my life. If you will not bend, High Mage, then _I will break you_. I will sacrifice all that you are, and I will burn the heart out of you if I must.”

Viren merely curled his lip in amused disgust. “Such pretty words from such a pretty monster. Does your daughter know how rotten your heart is?”

Runaan’s gaze flickered. “Yes. And I’ll atone for my failings to her if I can. I owe her that.” Runaan let go of Viren’s chin and settled back onto one heel, resting his other forearm atop his knee. “I owe many people many things. And so do you. But we cannot begin to repay our debts until we acknowledge they exist. I chased my own daughter out into the night, trying to save her from a dark fate I brought upon her. I finally realized that some prices are too high to pay for the world I want to live in. Do you know this truth yet?”

Viren’s angry breath seethed through his teeth, his very silence a ringing denial.

“I thought not. Then maybe you will allow me to teach it to you. Our darknesses are much alike, Viren. I can’t say it wouldn’t please me, just a bit, if our lights were similar as well.”

Bait flickered brightly at that and let out a soft hum.

Viren’s eyes shifted from the glow toad to the elf. “And what will this lesson entail?”

Runaan’s demeanor shifted, and he stood tall again, looming. “I’m burning your magic supplies. All except what I need for my next mission.”

Viren processed that and heard Runaan’s silent implication. His voice was hard as he asked, “Which is?”

“I’m going to take your daughter.”

***

“Runaan?” Ezran’s voice quavered as he saw the former assassin’s set expression. “I thought I heard you say…”

Runaan closed the heavy wooden dungeon door on Viren’s angry protests and handed Bait to Ezran. “What’s done is done, Ezran. Bait should stay here with you. What I do is the work of the shadows.” He picked up his bowblade and a quiver of brand new arrows, complete with newly crafted Xadian trimmings. He lifted one arrow partway out and examined the small pouch of powder he’d affixed just behind its blunt head. “This will be quick. I’ll be back soon.”

“Runaan… your oaths…?” Ezran’s voice was a whisper.

Runaan’s gemstone eyes cut to Ezran’s soft blue ones. “Don’t question me, Ezran.”

Without another word, Runaan melted into the shadows, leaving Ezran clutching Bait worriedly.


	18. Chapter 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Runaan takes Claudia, Soren tries to stop him, and the dungeon fam has to move house. Runaan and Ezran start the next phase of their plan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been 84 years... okay but it *has* been a decade since I updated this. So sorry!

The secret door swung open, revealing low light within the High Mage’s study. She was right on time. Runaan caught a glimpse of long black hair, and he loosed his arrow from the shadowy depths of the hallway beyond it. The blunt arrowhead struck true against the stone doorway, and the pouch of sleep powder exploded. Claudia’s gasp of surprise ensured that she inhaled enough of it to stagger and begin swooning. Runaan slung his bowblade over his shoulder and darted into the study just in time to catch the young mage before she crumpled to the floor and made any more noise.

The long fall of her hair swayed as he draped her bonelessly over his shoulder, but as he turned to slip back into the secret passage, a shadow fell across the floor.

“Clauds? Wait up, I’m coming too. That smoke was awfully thick, and something doesn’t seem—”

Runaan had a dagger in his hand before Soren found his tongue again, but he managed to point it threateningly instead of hurling it to kill.

The Crownguard’s hand went to his sword. “Give me back my sister!” Soren demanded.

“No.”

Soren dared to stalk closer. His blade sang out from its sheath. “I said, take your hands off her!”

Brows low and hard, Runaan kept his eyes on Soren and took a step back toward the secret passage. His dagger didn’t waver.

“No, wait, wait.” Soren raised his hands harmlessly, letting his sword dangle from finger and thumb. “Please. She’s just a kid. If you’re gonna kill someone, you should… you should kill me. I’m the one who marched you to the dungeon. And I made fun of your hair, too.”

Runaan paused and wondered why he felt the need to reassure one of his former captors. Especially the one who had dragged him off of Harrow’s balcony by his hair and called him the skinniest mop he’d ever seen. “I’m… not going to kill her.”

“But… you’re an _assassin_.”

The overly earnest soldier actually seemed to be trying to remind Runaan which role he was supposed to play. Luckily for Claudia, Runaan had found a different one. “I have other plans.”

Soren’s eyes widened. “Oh, geez, please don’t—”

Runaan’s mouth twisted. “Don’t be foul.”

Soren’s shoulders hunched. “So you’re not going to… drink her blood or…”

With effort, Runaan managed not to roll his eyes. “_I’m_ not. But _they_ might.” He nodded past Soren’s shoulder.

The Crownguard spun and raised his sword, expecting more assassins. As Soren found himself facing an empty study, Runaan swiped his palm across the door frame where his arrow had struck. He darted forward just as Soren turned back toward him, sword swinging, and blew the sleep powder off his hand into Soren’s face. The Crownguard sneezed three times in quick succession, made a series of very confused faces, and toppled over with a big crash of armor.

Runaan caught Soren’s sword in midair before it could stab the boy in the foot. He waited a beat, ears peeled for pursuit from other guards. But he heard nothing. The beat became a pounding pulse in a ringing silence. With one of the High Mage’s minion children draped over his shoulder and the other passed out at his feet, Runaan could take his justice as easily as breathing.

It was _tempting_.

They’d been casually cruel, just like their father. Runaan’s breath shallowed as he relived his treatment at their hands. It was no less than he’d expected. But to be hurt, mocked, and abused by mere _children_… His shoulders heaved and his skin prickled with distaste.

_Ezran. I need to remember Ezran. And my oaths to him. Because there is, occasionally, something in humans worth sparing._

Runaan took a deeper breath to center himself. He flipped Soren’s sword and caught it by the handle. After a soft nudge of his boot to make sure the Crownguard was truly out cold, he let out a short sigh and murmured, “Your justice will come later.”

A moment later, he vanished into the labyrinth of secret tunnels with Claudia and the Crownguard’s sword. There was much work to be done, and in far less time than he’d hoped to have.

***

“Sorry it’s a little smoky in here,” Ezran said. “It’s not too tight, is it?” He folded his hands nervously.

Claudia stood in the middle of the main dungeon and tugged against the manacle around her wrist, but the chain that ascended into the shadows would not give. Behind her, Runaan lurked against the curved wall below the blockaded staircase, arms folded, eyes hard.

“What are you doing, Ezran?” Claudia blurted. “What’s happened to you? Everyone thought you got kidnapped with Callum! I wasn’t sure whether to believe him when he said you stayed behind… Did this vile elf brainwash you? Has he been holding you prisoner here this whole time? They’re probably working together, aren’t they? Moonshadow assassins are the worst.” Claudia lowered her voice and spoke reassuringly. “Just let me go, Ezran, and I’ll protect you, I promise.”

Runaan didn’t even blink, but Ezran took a step back from Claudia’s flood of words, wide-eyed, and rested a hand on Bait’s back as the glow toad perched on the nearby counter. “Uhh, there’s kind of a lot you need to know, Claudia,” he began.

“It’ll have to wait,” Runaan interrupted. He stalked past Claudia, out of her reach, and fetched the manacle key from its drawer, as well as a fresh pair of manacles. Then he turned toward his old cell.

Ezran’s voice shivered as he said, “Why? What’s happened?”

Runaan knew he’d lost some of Ezran’s trust with his capture of Claudia, and now the little king clearly feared Runaan might escalate further. But that wasn’t a discussion to have in front of a prisoner. “We need to move.”

“Runaan!” Ezran called.

As Runaan strode down the hallway, Claudia’s voice drifted back from the main room. “Ezran, you know his name? What is going on down here? Where’s my dad?”

Runaan left the door open as he approached Viren. He stabbed the key into the lock on one of Viren’s manacles and twisted. Viren sensed his tense energy and stayed still, but his eyes were wide and darted toward the open door. “Cmmdmm?” he mumbled around his gag.

Runaan jerked him free of the other manacle on the cell wall and pivoted smoothly into an arm lock that bent the dark mage forward on his knees until his forehead nearly touched the dirty cell floor. The new manacles clinked into place in a flash, and Runaan hauled Viren up to his feet. With one hand on the manacle chains and the other on Viren’s collar, Runaan guided him toward the hallway.

Claudia’s questions died on her lips at the sight of her father. “Dad! …Dad, what’s wrong with your face? What did he _do_ to you? Dad! No, where are you taking him? You vile monster, you let him go!” The girl strained after Viren as Runaan marched him past her and turned down the hallway toward Ezran’s secret chambers.

As Runaan forced the dark mage ahead of him down the dim corridor, he leaned close and murmured, “I told you, Viren, that I’d take your daughter. It’s not my problem if you assumed I meant I’d kill her. But I _will_ take her. From you. And I won’t need anything in my quiver aside from the truth.”

***

“I know he asked you and Soren to kill us.” Ezran’s voice was quiet, subdued, clashing with Bait’s bright sunny glow. “I heard him through the walls.”

Claudia sat on a tapestry laid over a big pile of hay and held her chained hands in her lap. Runaan hadn’t gagged her yet, but he lurked in the background, arms folded, watchful lest she try a dark magic spell. Viren could wait, for now.

“I hope you know that Soren and I could never hurt you, Ez,” Claudia said gently. “Soren felt so confused… when he got paralyzed by the dragon, he actually cried with relief because he didn’t want to hurt you.”

“What? Paralyzed? Is he okay?”

“He’s fine,” Runaan interjected. “A little sleepy, perhaps. What did you kill to restore him?”

Claudia’s black brows drew down. “He’s my brother. I’ll do whatever it takes to keep him safe.”

Runaan sighed disapprovingly and shifted his gaze to Ezran. “Something big, by that streak in her hair.”

Ezran gulped, uncertain, and turned back to Claudia. “You went when your dad asked you to,” he pressed, “You didn’t say no. That doesn’t make me feel very good, Claudia. Did you think that Callum and I were threats, too? Were you protecting Soren from us?”

Claudia’s green eyes shifted to the side. “I… I was just…” She licked her lips and started over. “Ezran, I didn’t know anything about that until after Soren got hurt, okay? And then… Look, I’m not sure Soren heard Dad right.”

“I am.” Ezran’s voice was steady, and his eyes remained on Claudia. “I heard him ask.”

Runaan’s eyebrows lifted. The little king was deliberately soft, but he was relentless, too. He’d enjoy seeing the boy work on someone other than him for a change.

“I… I don’t understand any of this,” Claudia said quietly. “I know my dad loves Katolis, and he’s sacrificed and suffered for its people. He loved your dad, Ezran, so much. I know you think you heard him ask Soren to kill you and Callum, but I just can’t… why would he ask us to kill our own kingdom’s princes? It doesn’t make any sense.”

Ezran shifted to stand straighter, and his hands made little fists at his sides. “I’m not a prince, Claudia. I’m your king.”

Runaan offered Bait a wary glance. The glow toad grumbled proudly and sat up straighter, too.

***

“I’m not speaking to you, _Elf_.” Claudia’s words were bitter as she shook the chain that bound her wrists to the wall. “You’re poisoning Ezran against me.”

Runaan dropped to one knee in front of her and wordlessly held out a bowl with cheese cubes on top of a jelly tart.

Claudia’s lip curled at first, but she couldn’t keep her eyes off the food. Despite her last statement, she asked, “Is it from Ezran?”

Runaan gave her a more direct look and turned the bowl so the jelly tart’s corner was more visible.

She snatched the bowl with both hands, making her manacle chain clink, and stuffed a cheese cube into her mouth. “What’s with the silent treatment? You think you can scare me with your creepy elf ways? Well, think again. My dad raised me to be able to handle anything.”

Runaan dropped his gaze to the bowl, then glanced back up. “You offered me food when I was chained. I’m just returning the favor.”

“You didn’t take it.” Claudia inhaled another cheese cube.

“I didn’t want it.”

Claudia paused mid-chew. “Maybe it’s not Ezran you’re poisoning,” she breathed. She shoved the bowl back toward Runaan, and he caught it.

Their eyes met. Runaan squinted against the hot green rage of Claudia’s gaze. Slowly, he took a cube of cheese and ate it.

Claudia’s eyes widened, and then she looked aside, angry and embarrassed.

He held the bowl out to her. She didn’t take it, so he left it at the edge of her hay bed, within reach if she changed her mind.

She didn’t seem inclined to, with the way she turned her grimace away from him, shutting him out, and clutched her fingers around her chain.

If it helped her feel in control to hang onto the chain instead of reaching for the cheese, Runaan wasn’t going to interfere. But as he stood to leave, Claudia asked angrily, “Why are you doing this? Why are you here? What do you want?”

Runaan turned back to her for a moment. His heart pounded with sorrow, anger, regret, determination. “I have a daughter.”

The shock and revulsion on Claudia’s face didn’t help his mood.

***

“Viren.”

“Ymmff?” The dark mage’s mock politeness filtered through his gag as he sat cross-legged in the abandoned bathhouse with his hands cuffed to the stone wall. Runaan had salvaged a bit of dungeon hardware and attached it specially for him. But although the dark mage was gagged and bound, unable to cast his twisted spells, Runaan still felt cables of tension creaking inside him from being this close to the man who’d imprisoned and tortured him.

Runaan eased toward him until he stood in the patch of moonlight that filtered through the crack in the ancient window frame. His instincts wanted to attack, to flee, to end the threat that Viren posed. Not only to him personally, but to everyone. But his mind held firm, if only by the thinnest of margins.

_I have work to do. _

_And this… this is work, too._

His memories screeched battlecries in the back of his mind. His heart pounded with a nameless fear he thought he had conquered long ago. His palms went damp and shaky.

Runaan sucked in a breath and forced himself to sit slowly in the moonlight. He matched Viren’s pose, and then he rested his hands in his lap. His eyes found the floor tiles fascinating, and Runaan realized he was still afraid. Not of death. That fear he’d mastered decades ago.

No, this fear was _worse_ than death. Runaan knew now what it felt like not to be _allowed_ to die, when that remained the only way to escape a tiny, dark world of endless pain and humiliation.

To be forced to exist, not as an elf, but as a supply box.

Only Ezran’s kind intervention had saved him. Kindness. From another human.

Runaan remembered a box Ethari had crafted once, with a compartment in the bottom concealed by an enchantment.

_You didn’t dig deep enough in this box, Viren. I still have plenty of myself left. _Runaan got a stranglehold on his anxiety and drew in a slow, raspy breath. He raised his head and met Viren’s gray-sclera eyes. The dark mage stared back steadily. A muscle in Runaan’s jaw twitched.

Viren’s eyes crinkled at the edges. Behind his gag, he was smiling.

He _knew_. He knew the effect he had on Runaan, and he relished it. The power to touch without touching.

The rasp of Viren’s file on Runaan’s broken horn echoed out of his memory. Runaan’s left eye twitched as he felt its pain lash forward from the past. He lost control of his breathing, gasping suddenly, looking away for a moment. He glared back at Viren.

Viren’s gaze flickered to Runaan’s heaving chest and back up again. His crow’s feet deepened, and he tipped his head mockingly, silently inquiring after Runaan’s condition.

Runaan tightened his core and locked down his breathing, exhaling in an angry hiss. _My body may have been at your mercy for a time, but I’m never letting you inside my head._

Without that next breath, Runaan’s eyes burned hot, and his lungs burned dark. Blackness edged his vision, and his body pushed everything aside—_everything_, Viren, Claudia, Ezran, Rayla, Ethari, _everything_—in order to focus on dragging in that next breath.

_I want to live. Me. In this moment, you don’t matter. Just me. I want to live._

He gasped deeply, sucking in his next cool breath. The oxygen hit him like a drug, and Runaan held still and let it flush through him. Cool, clean. Pure. The rush left him dizzy.

When he opened his eyes, Viren was watching him with a raised and doubtful eyebrow. Runaan took a few more breaths, letting his heart rate even out. “This isn’t about you, Viren. It’s about me. I could sit anywhere and meditate on what you’ve done to me, but it means more here. Here in front of you, it means more. Do you know why?”

Viren snorted uncaringly.

Runaan thought back to Ezran’s negotiation tactic. Perhaps it was a human thing, baring one’s heart to near-strangers. But Runaan could work with that, and add a little Moonshadow spin of his own. “Because you get to see what you’ve done,” he said. “Ezran showed me what I did to him when I took his father. And that… meant something. I can’t _make_ you care about my fate. But I want you to see it. I _want_ you to see me struggling.”

At that, Viren’s eyebrows both rose, then settled suspiciously. His eyes raked Runaan, seeking a hidden agenda.

It was finally Runaan’s turn to smile. “When I return, you can tell me why, hmm? I’ll leave you to think it over for now.”

He rose silently and padded out of the abandoned bath house. He could feel Viren’s eyes studying him from behind, demanding answers. But he didn’t look back.


	19. Chapter 19

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Runaan has an errand to run. But he finds something shocking on the way back.
> 
> Also I love Claudia and Soren, okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can post a shorter chapter, as a treat.

“Runaan, we have to do something.” A high thread of worry wove through Ezran’s words.

“She’ll come around, Ezran. You’re doing well with her. As you did with me.” Runaan offered a small horn dip of acknowledgment.

The little king bobbed his head distractedly. “Thanks, but that’s not what I meant. The walls are telling me that Soren’s really upset.”

Runaan paused. “Your Earth arcanum. I wish I could help you understand it better. I feel it would be very useful.”

“Me too, but I can worry about that later. Soren’s shouting.”

Runaan tensed. “Bringing guards to search?”

“They’re already doing that. I can feel their feet scattering everywhere. It’s like… I’m the ground and they’re ants.”

Runaan lifted a brow. “Hmm.”

“It’s not that kind of shouting…” Ezran hesitated and turned aside. “He’s alone in his chamber. And he’s sad, and scared. His dad’s missing, and now his sister is too. He’s the only one left, and he can’t find either one of his family members.” He turned back to Runaan and lifted his chin, offering the former assassin a firm stare. “I want you to go tell him we’re not hurting them.”

Runaan folded his arms and studied the little king. “I don’t work for you, remember?”

Ezran lowered his dark eyebrows and matched Runaan’s pose. “Go for yourself, not for me.”

Runaan’s mouth turned down. “Why should I comfort him? He’d kill me if he could.”

Ezran blinked patiently. “Wouldn’t you want someone to comfort Ethari if he knew he’d lost you and Rayla?”

Runaan’s eyes widened. _This boy is far too observant._ He looked away.

“Besides,” Ezran continued, before pausing to let out a steadying breath. “You could’ve killed him when you captured Claudia, and you didn’t. I don’t think I’ve thanked you for holding to your oath.”

“You don’t need to thank me for doing what I said I’d do.” Runaan’s voice was low and steady.

“I don’t want you to forget how important your help is to me,” Ezran said brightly. “Especially because I’m asking for it again. Please. Will you go tell Soren that Claudia’s alright?”

Runaan let out a longsuffering sigh. “Where will I find him?”

***

“Your brother’s worried.” Runaan’s velvet voice echoed out of the shadows.

Claudia’s reply was acidic. “I’m not speaking to you, _assassin_.”

Runaan stepped into the light of Claudia’s candle, set firmly out of her reach. He dropped effortlessly into a silent crouch at the edge of its glow. “I’m going to see him. What do you think will happen when I do?”

Claudia’s manacle chains clanked as she jerked in alarm. “Don’t! Don’t you dare lay one creepy elven finger on him, or I swear—”

“That’s what I thought, too,” Runaan interrupted. “Which is why I’ve come.”

Claudia’s hot green glower was her only reply.

“I need your help,” he began, “or your brother will die. Not a threat,” he added quickly, seeing Claudia winding up for another rant. “You know he won’t listen to me. He has no reason to. But he _will_ listen to you.” His eyes dropped meaningfully, settling on a band of metal.

Claudia’s gaze followed his, then it snapped back up, suspicious. “What are you talking about?”

Runaan’s jaw bunched as he made one last review of his crazy plan. _All this because the little king asked it of me. I’m getting far too soft_. In silent response, he reached for Claudia’s manacle.

***

“Claudia, what should I do?” The Crownguard’s hesitant voice carried through the window and up to Runaan’s ears. The elf clung to the eaves as he swung down, lowering his toes to the window sill to observe.

The teenage boy lay sprawled across a massive bed the size and shape of a boat. He stared upward at what appeared to be decorative mast rigging and replied to himself in a softer, higher tone. “C’mon, Sor-bear, you know you use your muscles too much. Try using your brain for once. You didn’t lose it, did you?”

Runaan stood tall in the large open window, crossed his arms, and leaned a shoulder against the frame, expecting to be noticed any moment.

“I think I did, Claudia.” Soren’s gaze remained upward as he spoke in his own voice again. “I’ve searched everywhere, even the weird creepy parts of Dad’s dungeon. And I can’t find you anywhere. Please, just be okay until I can find you. I can’t lose you, too. I’ll figure something out. Dad’s mission might’ve been okay for me to fail, but this one?” The Crownguard’s voice firmed. “I’m not letting you down. I _will_ find you, somehow, if it’s the last thing I ever—”

Runaan cleared his throat impatiently.

Soren’s reaction was comically swift. He yelped, jerked his sword—a less ornate backup to the one Runaan had taken—from its scabbard, and leaped to his feet, all while letting out a ridiculously drawn-out yowl of panic.

His free hand swiped at his cheek as if brushing away tears.

_Crying with a sword in his hand, hmm?_ Runaan recalled his last moments of freedom before Soren had taken him prisoner. _Seems to be catching. Perhaps Ezran is right about this one’s heart._

Runaan remained in the wide window sill and held up his empty hands in a gesture of harmlessness, leaving his bowblade slung across one shoulder. But Soren’s candlelight winked off something around his wrist, drawing his eye.

The Crownguard stared, his face darkening. “Where did you get that? What did you do to my sister, you—”

Runaan stifled an impatient sigh. Long explanations were no more interesting than small talk. “You know better than I that no one but your sister can move these heinous things.” He held out his arm to let Soren see the curling silver snake bracelets that slithered snugly around his left wrist. Their green gemstone eyes winked brightly. “Claudia put them there herself, so you wouldn’t worry overmuch.”

Soren’s eyes remained sharp, but the tip of his sword dropped in total confusion. “It’s a trick. Some kind of illusion or something.”

Runaan let his face harden. “Do I _look_ like I’m enjoying having these things touching me?”

The Crownguard blinked. “…Not really, no. I don’t like those, either, actually. Claudia put them on me as a joke once, and then she left them on for two days… Not cool.” His sword tip flew back up. “So, hey. _Hey_, then, where’s my sister?”

“She’s with King Ezran.”

“Wh— Ez? King? _What_?” The look on the poor boy’s face—he looked utterly gobsmacked. “Oh, yeah. Of course…”

Runaan had been trying to play this situation seriously, but this poor human didn’t seem to have the skills to handle a fully adult conversation at the moment. With another sigh, Runaan lowered himself into a seated position and let his legs dangle into the room. The Moon was nearly full again, and it rode high overhead, pinging off his arcanum. A two-hundred-foot drop beckoned below his horns, to the rocky rim of the castle’s island below, but Runaan felt eminently comfortable with the Moon on his shoulders and his feet hanging into the humans’ world. He offered the young man a flicker of a smile. “The king likes you. He doesn’t want you to worry. He knows how you care for your sister. But so does he. He has no intention of harming her, as long as she listens to reason.”

Soren blinked sheepishly. “That’s… not as reassuring as you think it is.”

“Hmm.” Runaan hummed in wary agreement and rose to climb back out the window.

“Wait, that’s it?” Soren blurted, stepping forward. His voice lost all its high feels and dropped into serious intensity. “Stop!”

Runaan spun sharply and whipped his bowblade into his hand, drawing an arrow and nocking it. He hesitated, bowstring taut and humming, poised in the windowsill with the moon silhouetting his horns, and _just_ managed to restrain his darker instincts.

Soren skidded to a halt and held out a pleading hand as he lowered his weapon. “Please don’t go yet. I don’t understand. You’re not even threatening me. Do you want me to stop looking for Claudia and my dad? Do you have… I dunno… demands or something? Some kind of blood price to let them go, or whatever?”

Runaan let the bowstring go slack and lowered his arrow. “Some kind of _what_?”

Soren shrugged uncomfortably. “Blood. Like in jars or something, like wine? I really don’t know how you keep it, okay?” His hands flailed awkwardly. “And I’m not sure I could get it like that even if I wanted to. But we have farms and… stuff… so, I can try? If you just tell me what you want in exchange for my family. Just _tell_ me, _please_.”

Repulsed and squicked, Runaan could only stare for a moment. “I’ve spared your life, Crownguard. Don’t make me regret it. Whether your sister is returned to you or not is up to _her_. My duty is not for sale. Especially not for such a vile price.”

Soren’s brows lowered sharply. “Then what do you _want_, elf?”

Runaan slung his bowblade back over his shoulder and reached up for the eaves. His brows bent softly. “I want to go home.”

Soren was left speechless as Runaan flitted onto the castle roof and darted away into the night.

***

Runaan dropped through the dark mage’s study window into a crouch. The room was still clear, the large portrait shut against the secret tunnel to the dungeon and the lost sections of the castle. If Soren’s guards had searched thoroughly, they’d stopped for the night. The way back was clear.

He stood and sloped warily across the large round room. Every book, every jar, seemed to radiate a threat like a soft glowing mushroom in the Moonshadow Forest. This room belonged to a man who would—and had tried to—tear Runaan apart for the magic that lived inside him. It turned his stomach.

As he approached the painting, something pinged against his arcanum. A soft but powerful brush of Moon magic, unmistakable with its cool white radiance. Runaan’s feet froze to the floor, and he glanced over warily, seeking its source. What could Viren possibly have in his study that carried so much Moon magic? Another stolen relic, like himself? For all his hatred of the elves, Viren did like to collect elven things.

Runaan’s eyes landed on a tall object hidden beneath a dark blue dust cloth. Curing wooden feet poked out from the bottom of it, in soft swirls of old but well-made wood. He had a bare moment to imagine how Ethari would appreciate their form before a cold knot formed in his gut. In four strides, he was across the room. He yanked the blue cloth from atop the object and found himself staring at his own eyes in a massive, ornate mirror.

His eyes…the lighter one was on the wrong side. He glanced up at the reflection of his horns. The broken one wasn’t on the left anymore, but the right. He jerked back a step in horror as the full realization of what stood before him sank in.

_No… Not this. Not here._

And then, logic kicked in. _Yes, of course._ _It all makes sense now._

_Lain. Tiadrin. The Storm Spire. The egg of the Dragon Prince wasn’t Viren’s only prize that cursed day._

The knot of tension in his stomach tightened into an icy cramp._ This mirror. This is why he _really_ kept me alive._


End file.
